Life After Purpose
by Ihsan997
Summary: Tirith, a weathered sentinel, struggles with depression after the loss of immortality. By learning to cope with loss, can she fall in love with life again? WARNING: graphic, real world violence; genocide; infanticide; ethnic cleansing; abuse of psychiatry. Take the M rating seriously. 30 chapters.
1. December 14, year 23

**A/N: hello, readers! Welcome to Life After Purpose, the tale of another member of the women of Serenity, my fictional 10,000 year old grove of night elf OCs. This is the story of Tirith, one of the twenty five women originally from the village who scattered across Azeroth after the loss of immortality and the opening of their people to the world after the ending of Warcraft III. This story is near to my heart for a number of reasons, and it is my hope that it ends up dear to all of you.**

 **One important note: many of the elements of this story are inspired by real world events. At a time when innocent people are victims of ethnic cleansing, genocide, refugee crises and intimidation of whistleblowers, I felt a sad inspiration speak to me. This story is extremely graphic at some points. I quite literally wept while writing certain parts, but I tried to base things on real world events and occurrences as much as possible; all the dark, uncomfortable events that occur herein are very much plausible.**

 **Within the pain, there is a light - both in the real world and in this story. Please understand that I detest violence and oppression, but that this story was written this way for a purpose. There are slivers of hope in this world, through all the ugliness and loss; all an individual can do is find those slivers and hold on to them for all that is dear. That's what this story is about, in the end. Without further ado...I give you Tirith's personal quest to hold on to those slivers.**

 _December 14, year 23_

Dew dropped off the leaves as Tirith walked through the underbrush of Stranglethorn Vale. Deep in the jungle, there weren't any beaten paths and their party had left the main road quite a bit of time ago. The tropical rain forest was quite different from the temperate broadleaf forest she was used to. Both of them had ferns in the undergrowth, but here in the tropics, the ferns were excessive. The bushes, vines and shorter plants were much more numerous, though there was less grass on the ground and more roots and mud. Rather than watching where she stepped lest she fall into a grassy hole or crush a small animal, she instead had to watch out for jutting roots and exceptionally deep piles of clay. The taller and thicker undergrowth meant she had to push branches and entire plants aside with her shield and moon glaive more often that she was used to - she never used her hands, even with her gauntlets on, since she was still adjusting to the terrain and the very different wildlife. There was no need to risk getting bitten by something.

Heat pricked at her jawline and the exposed skin of her thighs and upper arms. Elves generally did not sweat, but she felt closer to that point than she could remember being. High overhead, the familiar sound of a strong wind and the rustling of leaves in the sky above played in familiar contrast to the still air on the forest floor. If she had to be dragged so far from her homeland, at least she could feel like she was surrounded by nature.

Her sensitive ears twitched as she picked up the sounds of civilization. Unnoticed by her three comrades, she swiveled her ears around until she could more clearly discern what exactly she was hearing. Thousands of years in the wilds had taught her to focus, and she could accurately guess a surprising amount of information. Across the distance she could not only tell the difference between the voices of the two genders for most races, but also the relative age and even general health of the speaker. Different bangs and scrapes of wood and metal told of different tasks, the quality of materials used and the manual dexterity of the person at work. The way those sounds carried told if the speakers were out in the open or in a fortified area, surrounded by how much fortification, and even how many bodies of non speaking people there were.

It was a talent she cherished and thanked the Goddess for every time she ventured out, though one which often went under appreciated - like many of her other skills. Since her people had joined this faction of young outlanders, she'd made a number of acquaintances and experienced very few wholly negative exchanges. How unfortunate, then, was she to be serving under one of those outlanders who happened to be one of the worst examples that the younger races had to offer.

Standing in the back, she could easily look down on the three individuals walking in front of her. Even the two humans were more than a head and neck shorter than her, which was part of why she was situated at the back - her stature and heavy armor was a big deterrent against sneak attacks, and both Panthers and bandits were numerous in that section of the rainforest. The male stood out in front, also a warrior in heavy armor; the female stood in the middle of the group, due to the lack of protects provided by her priestess' robes. They were a fascinating pair; the male, Sir William Argyle, had skin of a sort of bisque color, while the female, Khadijah Narume, had skin the color of coffee beans. Yet for some reason, the humans themselves insisted on referring to the two of them as 'white' and 'black' despite neither of them being such colors. At times, Tirith almost wanted to touch both of them to see if their skin felt different from hers. They both looked attractive in a foreign sort of way, though she couldn't actually touch them, of course; a human child once touched Tirith at the port of their capitol as if she were a museum specimen, and she knew firsthand that such contact wasn't pleasant. Sometimes she still liked to admire how different they were from her medium purple color, though.

Next to William, however, stood the reason that Tirith felt uneasy speaking about what she could already hear. Marge, their dwarven commander, splayed her elbows outward as she walked and behaved as if she were queen of the jungle. How apt, Tirith thought to herself; Marge had made statements in the past alluding to a belief that any land upon which this Alliance built a structure was theirs, as if nature could be owned by living beings.

"You'd think they'd just build a flight point out here, for crying out loud. I mean, they get sooooo much traffic in terms of explorers and visitors, you'd figure they'd actually earn some money if they did so. Just goes to show you what a lack of ambition does to people." Marge's voice was pleasant as always when she spoke to people she needed to stay on good terms with for political reasons, ever the overacting climber. When neither of the two humans responded to her comment, she proceeded to continue talking far too loudly. "This is why neutral factions never succeed as well as the Alliance. They think their refusal to pick sides is some sort of ticket to prosperity, and yet here they are in the middle of a jungle without even a proper gryphon roost."

"Gryphon roosts are indeed a hallmark of any serious settlement," Khadijah droned, obviously disinterested but trying to respond out of politeness.

If the subtley wasn't lost on Marge, she didn't show it. "And that's why ours has already been built! Even if the authorities in Duskwood are late in sending us our flying mounts and master, we already have the infrastructure built and..."

Eventually, Tirith just tuned Marge out and the sounds of the camp grew louder to her sensitive ears, though her comrades didn't seem to notice. Marge and William were angled slightly off course for the settlement they were traveling to, and Khadijah simply followed. They all chatted lightly with each other aside from a few attempts on Khadijah's behalf to involve Tirith in the conversation, which she generally resisted for fear of how Marge would react to her. To become lost in the Stranglethorn rainforest, however, was an unpleasant thought; none of them truly knew the area well and could end up walking out of the bush and off of a cliff. Steeling her nerve, the night elf infantrywoman decided to speak up.

"Commander," she said politely in her heavily accented Common, a language she still had yet to master despite having had some interaction with humans even before her people joined the Alliance.

At first, William looked over his shoulder, his bright eyes making contact with hers. Ever the well mannered knight, he almost looked happy that she'd spoken up, as if he'd been waiting for her to enter the discussion.

Unfortunately, Marge behaved much as Tirith had expected her to, and continued talking to William as if nobody else had spoken. Visibly uncomfortable, the human male turned his head back and forth between the two as he waited for Tirith to speak and for Marge to stop speaking. When neither happened, he turned back to Marge and tried to intercede.

"Commander, I believe that Sentinel Nightshade-"

"Three donkeys! That's exactly what I told Stonepot in the missive!" the dwarf said in an unnecessarily loud voice as she even began to ignore William. "I don't care what business he might pull about supplies of mount animals in remote areas, he's dealing with an entire nation here!"

Like a Stranglethorn thunder ape, Marge thumped her chest, hitting the gaudy aluminum breastplate and the Alliance tabard over it with the butt of her unloaded blunderbuss. The nonsensical display was typical of her, though so was the silence of Tirith's comrades in the face of Marge's poor leadership, and the dwarf once again began to dominate the conversation.

As the sounds of the remote camp they were looking for became more faint, Tirith realized she had to inform her commander, bad reaction or not. At this rate they'd end up in Lake Nezferteri before actually finding any other people.

"Commander...I hear the sound of Nesingwary's camp. I believe we-"

"Don't interrupt a superior, soldier!" Marge snapped at her with an ugly sneer. As if nothing had happened, she immediately resumed talking to William, who appeared increasingly uneasy as he likely tried to think of what to do. "So as I was saying, I told that Stonepot fellow that he's dealing with an entire nation behind the blue and gold, so he'd better get his fencesitting ass into gear and have our donkeys ready."

Even though Tirith knew what would come, she resolved to press the issue until Marge didn't want to deal with her anymore. Perhaps it was the natural stubbornness in reaction to belittlement, perhaps it was an honest desire to save time, but she was fully aware of how her commander would react and spoke again anyway.

"We're going the wrong way, commander."

Without skipping a beat, Marge halted and tensed her shoulders in the middle of the jungle. For a moment she stared forward dramatically, obviously playing up her sense of indignance. The dwarven commander spun around with a terrible performance of the patient yet livid superior who had somehow been wronged.

"Soldier, in civilized cultures, it's considered impolite to interrupt," Marge started, punctuating every word of her sentence in the most annoying way possible. Khadijah held her palms up in an attempt to calm the commander but was, unsurprisingly, ignored. "If you want to progress into the modern world, you will need to behave accordingly."

Tirith breathed deep, doing her best to remain calm in the face of the disrespect. Coming from a culture that valued wisdom and age, she had never truly been disrespected prior to four months ago. For such a being who was not one tenth, but rather _one hundredth_ of Tirith's age to speak to her in such a way was unimaginable; it was as if Marge placed no value on experience or life's hard lessons at all. Her Kaldorei pride stung, Tirith retracted into her mental shell, choosing not to lower herself to the level of reacting to such treatment.

"Do you need me to speak more slowly?" Marge snapped again, using a tone so over the top condescending that Tirith almost suspected it of all being a joke.

No longer able to witness the display, Khadijah spoke up. "I hear the sounds of Nesingwary's camp as well," the priestess lied; there was no way her small human ears could have picked up the sound, but she likely couldn't take watching Marge's antagonism anymore. "We're very close if we just go this way." The human female promptly pointed in almost the correct direction, temporarily drawing Marge's glare away from the night elf.

Anger still burned beneath Marge's eyes, but the claim from a second member of the party proved to be enough of a distraction such that she had something new to focus on. Quickly forgetting the exchange, Marge turned back around and began to lead them all in the correct direction. "It's ridiculous for them not to build an access road out here. They receive so many visitors, you'd think they'd be courteous enough to create some sort of a path." Her negativity redirected, Marge simply began chatting to William again, ignoring his disinterest in what she was saying.

The silence was fine with Tirith, as it gave her a chance to lick her wounded pride as they walked in silence. As the highest commanding officer at their small but potentially growing outpost, Marge had significant pull with the authorities in the area. Few were willing to cross her, and when in such moods everyone generally just did their jobs and stayed out of her way. The increasingly loud sounds of the camp they were heading for provided another form of mental distraction, letting her daydream for a bit.

Their settlement had sent people to Nesingwary's camp before, but this was the first time Tirith would accompany them. She'd heard it was a place where explorers and adventurers of all races would meet, and the old dwarf welcomed all factions through his gates - Horde and Alliance alike. Tirith had no problem with the Horde - she wasn't fond of the Alliance for numerous reasons, and considering that the night elves had joined just under half a year ago, their membership was still expressly rejected by a sizable but powerless minority. She'd accepted it as she did most things she couldn't control, but she was incredibly curious to speak to members of the Horde; in her mind, the night elves could just as easily have joined them. The two appeared rather similar in her eyes.

Between the jungle trees, Tirith could see spaces gradually opening up as the gaps began to grow larger, the jutting roots less numerous and the ground flatter overall. From thousands of years of experience, she knew this to mean the approach of an area easily habitable by races which built their dwellings rather than grow them; she'd seen such patterns repeated by furbolgs, tauren and centaur in her day, as opposed to the more natural buildings of her people or the quilboar. She remained silent, however, knowing that they were on the correct course and that speaking up again could create more conflict. She'd seen enough of that in her long life.

Sure enough, the sounds grew rather loud, and the way all the voices echoed among the trees made her smile. It might not be home, but it was nicer than the current state of the settlement she had been stationed at.

"Finally. What a dump," Marge grumbled. "This shouldn't take long; just the donkeys and our provisions. Let's just get inside away from this ugly mosquito nest." She motioned to the nature around them as they approached the main gate of the camp, confounding Tirith to no end.

The neutral camp of the explorer the others referred to as Nesingwary was much larger than the heretofore unnamed Alliance settlement Tirith was stationed at. The fact that Nesingwary's whole camp had been surrounded by murdered trees bound together to form high walls stung her, but she'd found herself growing less sensitive toward the sight after seeing all the other horrors humans and dwarves inflicted upon the planet. They behaved in the only fashion they knew, she repeated to herself as they paid a toll to the mercenaries guarding the entrance and walked in to the incredibly crowded, busy but vibrant and safe explorers' camp.

All around them, travelers, adventurers and explorers were buying and selling, and quite a few were crowding around tents serving as makeshift hostels, sleeping the day away despite all the clamor. As much as Tirith did resent the changes to her people's society after opening up to the world, now that it was irreversible she did enjoy seeing all the different peoples of the world. The other races of the Alliance were quite colorful - like the contrast of Khadijah and William, the humans as well as many dwarves and gnomes varied so much in their skin tones that they almost looked like a larger number of different races. Tauren, members of the Horde but familiar to Tirith for most of her life, strode around slowly sporting furs of various colors. Understanding a bit of her language, she overheard a number of them complaining about the humidity in Stranglethorn even though Feralas was about the same. Orcs mostly looked the same, but she found their green skin interesting all the same. While some of them had murdered her demigod Cenarius, not all of them were responsible for the acts of those few; she didn't share the prejudice of some other night elves toward the entire Orcish race. The few that did notice her, however, were far from friendly and either looked away or glared. Most went about their business anyway.

Some races were less numerous. The undead who had broken free from the Scourge and gained sentience called themselves Forsaken; she wasn't sure if they were truly members of the Horde or not as she'd heard conflicting information, but either way she was glad there were only a few of them. She'd seen enough to believe that some undead individuals had regained self control, but why didn't they commit ritual suicide? Who would want to be undead? The jungle trolls of the Horde were few in number as well, most of them having carved up land on her continent like the humans and orcs. Tirith was familiar with the dark trolls; they lived interspersed with night elves and some of them were actually friendly toward her people. Jungle trolls were not. There also weren't many goblins despite the presence of Booty Bay in the region; she could find no explanation for that. A handful of gnolls and ogres rounded out the mix of travelers, making for a cacophony of different languages.

Just inside the camp, the group came to a stop and formed a diamond in the side of the dirt walkway; they had another long trip ahead of them and couldn't waste time, as Marge made apparent.

"We left at dawn and it's almost noon; that means that if we leave after dawn, we can return home just before dusk. We need to get serious; who knows what sort of beasts stay awake at the night time." Though the last comment was likely not intended as a swipe, Tirith has to steel her jaw not to react anyway. "Khadijah, you and I will handle old Stonepot. William, I need you to check on that axe shipment for the boys back at camp. You," Marge said while pointing directly at Tirith in a way the night elf detested, "follow William. Nobody get lost; we should meet back here within the hour."

If there was one thing that could be said about Marge, it's that she had incredible stamina for such a stocky person; despite her profuse sweating, she didn't take issue with turning right back around and marching out again after having marched all day. She promptly turned around and walked through the crowd toward another end of the congested camp. Khadijah flashed Tirith an apologetic smile, likely for having been addressed by Marge so carelessly, before disappearing behind the other woman into the crowd.

Like the priestess, the knight appeared embarrassed. "I'm sorry, I don't know why she's like this today," William said sheepishly over the din of the crowd. Straightening up, he pointed toward a large, open air tent covering a few anvils, a chemical bath, grinding stones and work benches but no forge. "That's where we can pick up the shipment for the camp."

"Right," was all Tirith said, seeing no reason to say any more.

The two of them walked beneath the busy tent, squeezing to find space among the many patrons and multiple workers. In the middle of it all, William attempted to draw the attention of a woman, another human, with black hair and skin of a color somewhere between his and Khadijah's.

"Jaquilina!" William called out to the dark human, earning a quick way but fleeting glance from a nearby dwarf.

The human turned around, winded from having been doing something Tirith couldn't see at a grindstone but relieved to see William. "Sir Argyle, yes, what a surprise! Glad to see you all made it out here in one piece."

"Oh, just barely; you operation here has chosen a very defendable spot," he chuckled heartily.

Tirith felt eyes on her as the woman named Jaquilina stared in a way only that race could. "One of your colleagues, I take it? Jaquilina Dramet, nice to meet you!" Before the woman had finished her greeting, Tirith had already stiffened and stepped backward in anticipation of the extended hand. As tolerant as she tried to be of the younger races, she disliked handshakes. Of course, she did want to see what curious new people felt like, but she never actually touched them; that would be an invasion of space.

Leaning back before the woman's arm had been extended, Tirith bent over and bowed, performing a common elven greeting. "Ishnu..I mean, greetings," she stuttered. "I am Tirith Nightshade."

Fortunately, the human seemed like on of the few open types and obliged Tirith's desire to hang on to at least one aspect of her culture. "Nice to meet you Miss Nightshade!" Jaquilina beamed while bowing with one hand out to the side in a way the human seemed to find funny. "I hope your journey out here wasn't too difficult." The human appeared exceptionally pleasant for a stranger, but she still spoke in an unnecessarily slow tone as if Tirith wouldn't understand her otherwise.

Unaccustomed to the oneness from someone she'd met only seconds before, Tirith paused, unsure of what to tell a person she knew nothing about. "It was...not difficult," was all she could say.

"That's good to hear, because your trek back might be a little tough. Your shipment weighs a good two hundred pounds, and I assume you'll be traveling back with more than just weapons, correct?"

In truth, Tirith had no idea what Jaquilina was talking about; Marge had told the night elf very little about why four core members of the settlement's defenses had to march for so long to another remote camp. Tirith hadn't cared to ask either, mostly keeping to herself at the post she'd been assigned to. Before she could answer, though, Jaquilina hit an ogre assistant in the arm. The large man had a horn growing atop his head and smelled awful, and his skin was similar to William's but yellowed and sickly. Blubber vibrated as the ogre picked up a heavy crate of weapons effortlessly and held it out for Tirith and William to expect.

"It's all here, and all of it steel as you asked; a little more expensive, yet more durable and still lighter than iron, even." Jaquilina spoke with pride as she opened the crate and revealed a cache of weapons crafted by either human's or dwarves, and Tirith figured out that Jaquilina must be some sort of weaponsmith. "Take a look!"

"Yes, this is what I like to see," William murmured, suddenly very serious as he inspected the weapons.

Human and dwarven smithing always confused Tirith. Their craftwork was just as good as that of elves, but they took so long to fashion their weapons, as she'd found out over the past four months - especially the humans. The Alliance raved over dwarven blades and while work out of Ironforge was admittedly good, they usually spent a week crafting a good piece and murdered and then burned an entire adult oak tree to power their forges. Her people simply assigned wisps to craft weapons of equal quality in a matter of hours, without needing to murder trees for fire or scar the soil by digging for ore.

Still, she was not in a position to criticize. Her assignment was part of troop rotation to promote unity in their new faction, and their settlement had been besieged by bandits and scavengers since she'd arrived. The rest of the inhabitants at the barracks were nervous when unarmed; she counted four hand axes and six long swords, just enough for their allies back at camp.

"The others will be glad to have these," she mumbled in Darnassian without thinking.

Immediately, Jaquilina began to laugh, though there was not a hint of mockery or condescension in her tone. "Like what you see, eh?" she asked while reaching out and touching Tirith on the shoulder innocently.

The night elf did her best to relax, knowing that short lived creatures formed bonds quickly and that the woman might already consider her a friend. "Your work is good," she replied in Common, not remembering how to say anything more detailed at the moment.

"Jaquilina, you're a miracle worker," William sighed while nodding to the ogre, who promptly closed the crate again. "Funding is low for remote outposts, and due to administrative nonsense we were assigned troops but not enough armaments."

"I heard, Margaret mentioned it in her missive. By the way, we received the voucher from your regional command just before you arrived, so payment has been handled. Do you need Fug here to help you load everything up?"

"Well, Margaret is still procuring our riding animals - three donkeys, and the third will be loaded with this and two light crates of provisions. Until then, I won't have anywhere to put them." William looked around in a way that came off as less childlike to Tirith than the way other humans tended to before spying a bench. "Would we be able to catch some rest on your seating there until she's ready?"

"By all means; we're so swamped here that none of us have time to sit anyway!" Jaquilina laughed while leading the two of the, over to the bench. "Here, let me clear this off for you."

"No, I can do it."

"No, I insist."

"I insist."

Tirith cleared the bench off while the two humans competed to see who could be the most generous and sat herself down at the far end of the bench. It was toward the back of the tent near the camp's walls, a place that was a bit quieter and was next to one of the tent's support beams. She leaned against it and closed her eyes, giving a congenial smile when she heard the two humans poking fun at her sleepiness.

Because the younger races her people were now aligned with were all diurnal, they'd began recruiting night elves for night shifts at Alliance encampments all over. Tirith was no exception, and the fact that Marge had given Tirith only the following night off work irritated her to no end; readjusting her sleep schedule at her age would take more than a day. While she'd undertaken marches during her people's ten thousand year vigil that lasted for decades, they were a changed people after the loss of the World Tree; Tirith's feet ached already and her lungs stung from all the marching. She had quite literally forgotten what it felt like to be tired, and the hard support pole of the tent suddenly felt rather inviting.

Sounds of the camp drifted away as she dreamed of colors and shapes, greens and purples in pastel shades that mixed together. Perhaps she should have respecced as a druidess when the class was opened to women after the Third War. Then she would get to sleep all the time, like a handful of the other women from her village.

Nah, she thought, halfway lucid during her dream. That just wasn't her. Images of her glaive slicing through demons floated in and out of her mind, some of them memories and some of them fantasies. She'd always loved to get up close and personal, charging into battle with her heavy armor, knocking felguards aside and cutting through ranks of satyr. Her smile while sleeping was wide enough for her to feel the skin of her face move.

The noise of the camp returned to her and gave her a jolt, and she opened her nocturnal eyes a little too fast. Sun shone at her salty, stinging eyes and she shut them again quickly, having been woken up too quickly.

"Kharsh," said a female voice next to her.

Rubbing her eyes, Tirith turned to see a blurry green shape and realized it must be an Orc female. She'd fought orcs during the Third War, but then again she'd also fought humans during the handful of battles between the Sentinels and the Alliance leading up to that war, and she felt no more threatened than she would be Jaquilina. Tirith's eyes refocused and she saw an armored female soldier with short black hair. The orcs tended to have more women in combat than the humans, which Tirith found more logical and natural, but the soldier next to her didn't appear aggressive; the woman's eyebrows knitted in an apology before she turned away, and Tirith assumed that 'kharsh' was an apology for having awoken her.

For once, Tirith realized that she was the one staring as she imagined what the Orc's skin would feel like were she to touch it. The Orc was much smaller than her, even shorter than William, but rather strong looking. She had sat down on the bench where William had been before, and was staring straight ahead, also tired but visibly uneasy being next to a night elf.

Seeing no reason to be antagonistic, Tirith shrugged off her sleepiness and subtly leaned closer to the Orc. "Tirith," she said while motioning to herself.

Standoffish and nervous, the Orc turned her head to look at the night elf. Her gaze was one of suspicion and weariness; perhaps the woman had been marching through the jungle, just like Tirith's party. Perhaps she was just as uneasy as Tirith had been around Jaquilina at first. And perhaps it was the woman's unease that pushed Tirith to reach out instead of trying to rest another minute before finding William.

"Tirith," she said while motioning to herself again.

At first, the green woman's brow furrowed in confusion and suspicion. It must have felt strange for the young being to be faced with a member of a race fighting hers for land, Tirith though, but the young woman appeared unaggressive; not too bold so as to see her as an enemy, and not too timid to simply turn away. After a moment of awkward silence, the Orc tapped on her breastplate.

"Tharga," she mumbled almost shyly as she glanced around, perhaps worrying that another Orc might spy on them.

"Tirith, I can see Marge coming," came William's voice from a few feet away. Tirith turned to see the horseless knight approaching from within the crowd, obviously having woken up before her.

"Oh...how long did I sleep for?"

"We both slept just over an hour; Marge is late...but she will still have our heads if we are, too," William explained while waving down the ogre named Fug. "Come on, we need to be waiting so we can get out of here."

Wanting to share one last word with a person from a race she might never have the chance to interact with again, Tirith turned to the Orc named Tharga but found her and William uncomfortably avoiding each other's gazes. How ironic, she thought; her people had fought both William's and Tharga's in the Third War, yet she had no qualms with either of them personally, yet there they were refusing to acknowledge each other in a neutral camp. Alas, her people had picked a side, and Tirith gave up on trying to bid her new acquaintance farewell before standing up to follow her comrade.

On cue, the ogre picked up the large crate and began to follow the two of them out of the tent. Hurrying more than usual, Tirith pushed past people in the crowd and even in front of William to reach the meeting point near the main path leading out of the camp's high walls. It was busier there than anywhere else except one pathway deeper inside the camp (it was so crowded with tents and supplies wholesalers that there was no open area that could be called the definitive 'center' of the place).

Scanning the other crowded area, Tirith spied Marge and Khadijah leading three donkeys, two of which were already saddled with light supplies. Marge looked absolutely irate as the crowds refused to part for her. "Are you sure one of these small horses with a rabbit's ears can carry that crate?" the night elf asked.

William laughed as if he found the suggestion preposterous. "Donkeys are plenty strong, trust me. We'll have to walk slower than before through the thicker parts of the jungle, but it will manage."

Commotion didn't break, but a portion of the crowd did from behind them, and Tirith turned. Entering through the gate was a group of three jungle trolls - two unarmored females wearing animal bones and what looked like the skin of sentient beings, and one heavily armored male hovering behind them. Something was different, though; the orcs avoided looking at them as much as the humans did, and the trio was rather large. Most Horde trolls she'd seen were slim, but these were all thick, and the male was as tall and meaty as the ogre, Fug, but without all the blubber.

When William noticed Tirith was the only person looking at the newcomers, he leaned over close enough to startle her. "Those aren't members of the Horde, if you're wondering," he whispered. "Apparently, some of those things aren't - some sort of a blood feud."

Tirith nodded and straightened up to look over the tops of the heads of the people in the crowd - she herself was as tall as most men of her race, hence why she carried a glaive and not a bow, and could easily see the bizarre newcomers. "They're allowed inside the camp?" she asked.

"Nesingwary allows anybody inside if they behave and have a reason to be here - even beasts," the human replied. He used the word as if it were simply a normal way to refer to someone, but it sounded negative in Tirith's ears; she'd met friendly and hostile trolls around Mount Hyjal, and thought they were the same as any other race of people. In a certain light, they almost looked like warped elves to her, though both she and William laughed when they saw a high elf who had been reading a map look up to the trio, panic and jump face first into a signpost. "They might not be members of the Horde, but they're the same as all the others or these gnolls and orcs around here; just stay away from them," William whispered again.

So many different races, languages and clothing styles were around that Tirith felt a little overwhelmed. For so long, she'd woken up every night under the impression that she'd live forever, serving nature until her mind was wiped away by monotony. Now, she found herself across an ocean on a continent she didn't know had survived the Sundering, among people she'd considered enemies just a year ago and meeting more people from nations she hadn't heard of every single week. A tauren and a dwarf shared a laugh at the high elf despite wearing tabards of opposing factions while a half human, half Orc man sat smugly outside a tent hostel while women from both races tried to attract his attention. Oddly, she still couldn't see any goblins, gnomes or other night elves, though she did see people whose background she honestly couldn't determine.

Bronze plate reflected sunlight in her eye as the male from the trio shifted. His armor looked impossibly heavy despite his unencumbered strides and it took Tirith a second to stop inspecting it and realize that the man had noticed her looking at his group. While the Horde trolls she'd met were generally rather grumpy and rude, this person looked rather relaxed and almost calm. Despite the tension she felt from William, she couldn't help but notice the trio had the same colored medium blue hair as she did, and she unconsciously smoothed a hand over her short ponytail. Wearing a winning poker face, the large warrior ran a hand through his mohawk in the same way before he and the two females dipped out of clear sight in the busy camp, almost causing Tirith to laugh at the quaint joke between herself and a stranger.

She hadn't noticed that Marge had walked up close enough to notice that Tirith was looking at all the people around them. "Stand at attention, soldier!" the stocky leader of their settlement barked.

Groaning internally, Tirith turned to face Marge with the respect accorded a commanding officer, though the thought of someone a mere century old being her commander irritated Tirith to no end. "Hail, commander," she droned, taking advantage of the fact that her people's monotone could project formality while masking disinterest and sarcasm rather well.

"Hey, we got everything we came for!" Khadijah beamed while pointing to the supplies saddled on two of the donkeys. In sharp contrast to their commander, their priestess looked upbeat and well rested.

The dwarf watched the blue mohawk until it disappeared from view entirely. "Keep your wits about you; there are too many savages like that allowed in dumps like this," Marge told Tirith in a tone bearing far more urgency than was warranted. The ogre that was loading their crate for them on the last donkey harrumphed at Marge in offense, but was ignored.

"I think those ones aren't members of the Horde, commander," Tirith droned absentmindedly. She didn't particularly care to defend anyone from the likes of Marge, but the gross generalization did bother her somewhat.

Lending no help to Fug or William, Marge just sneered and turned away from Tirith, holding on to the saddle of one of the less encumbered donkeys as if she intended to ride rather than walk. "They're all the same. Only apes live in forests."

All of Tirith's back muscles tensed up, and her ears even picked up the sound of William shutting his mouth tight and suppressing a gasp inside his throat. For a second, she could see Khadijah shoot her another apologetic look before looking down, and the night elf felt her pulse increase more than she would have liked to admit. Though Tirith wish she could actually question whether her commander had really just said something so blatantly racist, she knew what she'd heard. Whether or not Marge intentionally insulted the Kaldorei as well or was simply too ignorant to remember that the newest members of the Alliance were the penultimate forest dwellers was an honest question; the dwarf was angled such that Tirith couldn't see the woman's face clearly to check for that familiar ugly, squinty eyed, stiff lipped, 'look at me I'm making a funny' smirk that Marge wore when she was being passive aggressive. Instead, their leader rode ahead of the group, and as had happened before, both the priestess and the knight looked shocked but didn't speak up about the ignorance.

"Come on, let's ride. We need to get back before the sun sets and all the monsters come out," Marge called over her shoulder, adding salt to the wound on the night elf's pride. There was an even higher chance that the last comment stemmed from ignorance rather than spite toward Tirith personally, which left her unsure of whether to be more or less offended.

Taking the high road per the values she held dear, Tirith began to march as William led the donkey carrying the heaviest crates. Khadijah rode the second of the two less burdened donkeys as the party left Nesingwary's camp, trying to catch Tirith's eye to possibly try to comfort her, only making Tirith feel even more shy and withdrawn in the process.

The whole excursion had been fascinating if tiring, and the tried to push the note it had ended on out of her head. They had a long trek ahead of them; if Tirith remained quiet, Marge would likely just ignore her and leave her alone. All she could think about was getting back to her boring outpost, get to her bunk and catch up on sleep.


	2. February 3, year 24

_February 3, year 24_

One of the many birds of paradise found in Stranglethorn Vale announced the rising of the moon with its call. The sound found its way through the open window of the women's barracks, the most melodious sound to be heard at the small Alliance outpost in the far south of northern Stranglethorn 'province.' Or at least, the faction claimed it as a province. As Tirith came to find during the past half a year there, that claim was not only contested but largely a fantasy.

The last few buckles of her bracers didn't cooperate as she tried to fasten them. For millennia she'd donned her armor without assistance, ritualizing the behavior until it had become second nature. She and her shield sisters used to hold competitions to see who could suit up the fastest, passing by the countless years and preparing to spring into action on a minute's notice for the inevitable return of the Burning Legion. Their grove's commander narrowed the amount of time to don her armor to forty three seconds; they all threw a moderate celebration over that. Those days had long since passed, and after the loss of her people's immortality, they began to age. Those of them who were a mere thousand years old or less fared the best; little changed aside from an increased fertility rate, and the younger ranks of the Kaldorei - very well likely the majority - were the most accepting of the brave new world they found thrust upon them. Those who were older than the War of the Shifting Sands but still born after immortality had begun displayed some signs of ageing in terms of their appearance and, by night elven standards, their maturity; they probably wouldn't live as long now that they were mortals again, but their mentality was still similar to that of the younglings.

Those from Tirith's generation weren't faring quite as well. Born three millennia before immortality had even begun, she had already outlived the life expectancy of an elf by then due to the longevity provided by the Well of Eternity; so much time had already passed before the War of the Ancients that Tirith could already have filled volumes with all that she witnessed. The Long Vigil, their ten thousand year watch, was longer but much less eventful, filled mostly with monotonous duty night in and night out. And after seeing and living through so much, those who were born in her eon knew they would be the first to go.

It was felt immediately. At the Battle of Mount Hyjal, she stood next to her shield sisters as the horn was blown, and Nordrassil was sacrificed to destroy Archimonde; the shockwave from the wisps caused a quick pain in her spine, a dizziness in her head and the temporary loss of the glow of her eyes for a few minutes. The younger night elves didn't feel it, having largely been unaffected by the loss; for Tirith and many of the others, it was the start of nagging annoyances that upset the night elves much more than the younger races. Illness had been unknown to her people, and she suddenly found herself blowing her nose more when exposed to cold weather. Bumps and scrapes had been temporary, and she suddenly found that a scar from a skirmish against a mob of murlocs just wouldn't go away. Clumsiness had been incomprehensible to them, and suddenly she found herself less nimble that her youngers and stubbing her toes, dropping her chopsticks and overestimating her own jump distance on occasion.

On that particular night as she sat on the edge of her bunk, her problem was that buckling her bracers unassisted required twenty three seconds. At least she had been stationed in a jungle; she'd heard stories from the few other night elves she'd met in that part of the world about pre-immortality individuals suffering from joint problems when assigned to huntress lodges and Druid dens in Winterspring.

Maybe things weren't so bad at her newest assignment after all-

"Hurry up!"

The loud banging on the door and the bellowing from outside snapped Tirith out of her thoughts. Her shift hadn't even started yet and Marge was already causing a ruckus outside.

In only five seconds, Tirith ran one last check on her armor to ensure it was all fastened properly. That wasn't fast enough for the outpost's commander, and by the time Tirith had hitched her shield to the carrier on her backplate and attached her moon glaive to her right bracer, Marge had already waddled off, leaving the doorway empty when the sentinel walked outside.

"You! Don't out those steel cables there!" the dwarf yelled at someone who Tirith couldn't see around the corner of the men's barracks. "And you, get to your post! You're going to be late!"

"A sentinel can be at her post in under ten..." Tirith's Darnassian retort trailed off as Marge had already disappeared, likely off to her usual frantic scurrying around the camp in order to ensure that all daily chores had been finished so she could sleep in her private quarters.

It was for the best, anyway; Marge had officially banned the speaking of any language other than Common by the Alliance soldiers stationed at the camp, and the woman had the authority to assign anyone to overtime, manual labor or even an appearance at the office of the regional command. That would require a trip even further from the main highway running between Booty Bay and Duskwood, which to date nobody had been unfortunate enough to be tasked with.

Swift and silent, Tirith exited the women's barracks and slipped in between that and the camp wall. Like Nesingwary's camp, the Alliance camp in that part of northern Stranglethorn had no real center; there were high walls made from murdered trees forming a circle, a ring of government and military buildings inside forming another circle, and then civilian vendors and settlers in the middle. One dirt intersection between some buildings on the other end was wide enough for chairs, and the civilians and off duty soldiers would often spend part of the evening playing what humans seemed to think was music and drinking far more than was healthy. Wanting to avoid all that, she slipped unseen out the main gate, surprising William and the two silent but polite dwarven warriors who shared his shift.

"Greetings," Tirith droned a little more pleasantly as she found the three men relatively at ease as they chatted just outside the camp walls. The darkness of the jungle lied beyond save for a narrow dirt road leading through and the opening in the canopy above, though Tirith's eyes saw perfectly under such conditions.

Feigning surprise, William blinked his eyes in an exaggerated manner. "Glad it's you and not a certain someone else!" he laughed deeply despite his tired eyes. The two dwarves with him smiled as well, much more low key than the humans when they were sober. They never stared or pried, and coupled with William's relatively reserved nature, the trio were of the few people at the camp whose company Tirith actually enjoyed.

"I feel the same," she replied, finding it much easier to speak their language when she felt at ease.

For a second he seemed to expect her to say more, and when she didn't, he continued talking comfortably. "I take it we're finally to be relieved of our posts for the night?"

"Yes, and I think Marge will want you to tell her to her face." William found Tirith's comment funny and she assumed she'd used words in a way he wasn't used to as a native speaker. Seeing an opportunity to practice her skills without fear of being mocked, she tried to make a joke. "So I will wait here all by myself?" she asked, knowing that she'd been handling the night shift at the settlement gate by herself on most nights anyway.

To her relief, the human knew her well enough to know it was a joke and laughed. "Unfortunately, we don't have the budget for heavier security at night. Luckily, we have you here and a few of the night owls prowling inside - we never lose sleep knowing you're here."

It took her a second to realize she'd been complimented, and her pride swelled. "I am...glad. And ever vigilant. This is what my people do best."

"Of that, we have no doubt."

"By the way, lady Nightshade, a number of us're going te be around the circle tenight," interrupted the wearier looking dwarf. "Ol' Marge'll be sleeping soon enough, ye could probably risk just locking the gate and joining us inside."

Appreciative but wary of growing close to people so foreign and so distant from nature, Tirith tried to refuse without losing their goodwill. "I am honored, but I cannot leave my post. I wish for another time," she replied, trying her best to smile but not knowing how to do so naturally after having remained stoic for most of her life.

"Oh, ye be right there, lass. None of us want te earn the wrath of the fearless leader," the tired dwarf laughed as he walked inside. The human and the other dwarf followed soon thereafter, leaving her to herself.

"You can lower the gate if you so choose, Tirith," William said just before he disappeared among the cramped, closely placed buildings of the camp. "I don't think we're expecting any nighttime arrivals this week."

She paused, but this time to consider the idea rather than any need to formulate the words in her mind. "This is maybe...it can be raised again," she called out just as she found herself alone.

Once by herself, of course, Tirith had a few rounds to do. The perimeter of the camp would need to be inspected, even though they hadn't yet faced any hostile targets during the night. If there's one thing she knew she excelled at beyond all others at the camp, it was diligence in following orders to the letter; one didn't spend ten millennia performing the same patrols nightly for enemies that never appeared without developing such dutiful habits as hers.

The circular camp was surrounded by trees on all sides, though the back walls of the camp were only a mere few yards from the edge of the rainforest. A small but powerful river flowed back there, providing the important water access necessary for any thriving settlement, and at one point there was even a small pool that formed in one broken portion of the banks that held water still enough for her to see her reflection. The clearing in front of the camp was wide, providing empty space for the extremely rare landing from a flying mount at the unmanned flight point, right next to the dirt road that led westward toward the main highway of the province. The gaudy sign out front read 'Camp Freedom' - the rather jingoistic name Marge had chosen for their settlement a few weeks ago. Everything was in order, as it should be.

These nights were Tirith's time. Six nights a week, she marched around her post out there, holding watch during a ten hour shift while all but a handful of the other forty someodd residents remained awake. All of them were pioneers for the Alliance, either troops like her or basic civilian workers - laborers and craftspeople. There were no farmers and since the younger lived races weren't in touch with the balance enough to grow food naturally without labor, their provisions had to be shipped in at great expense. For whatever reason, the faction was absolutely set on having a presence in the region, and Marge's obsessive micromanagement was just what they'd wanted. Everybody was there for a purpose, all were in tight schedules, overtime could be assigned in almost any given day and no children or youths were allowed to stay. The militaristic lifestyle was all too familiar to Tirith, and the population wasn't much more than that of the village she'd spent the entirety of the Long Vigil living in.

Well...to an extent, she thought. For ten thousand years, she'd lived in a grove physically sealed off from intruders by the ancients and treants, emerging only for their nightly rounds of patrolling their region of the Ashenvale forest. Twenty five women, all led by their own local priestess of the moon assigned by the High Priestess herself, all waking up to the same faces as they performed the same actions for what they'd expected to be forever. A few faces changed as some were transferred out by order of the Sentinel regional command, and others were born over the millennia, but most of the originals remained the same; all of them were shield sisters.

Until the Third War, that is. After having fought both the Alliance and the Horde, the High Priestess had decided to pick a side rather than remain as a third faction on their own. Larger cities such as Astranaar and the brand new Darnassus thrived from the new trade and technology; small villages like Tirith's chafed under the influx of alcohol, wheat flour, refined sugar and the new foods, germs and ways brought by all the Alliance immigrants. Because they were all one faction now, troop rotations were undertaken to increase goodwill, and she had been one of the first; mere months after they'd joined the faction, she'd been shipped here, though she had remained at their village long enough to see her shield sisters become a minority among all the humans, dwarves, gnomes and even night elves from other provinces.

Freezing next to the gate and letting her shoulders sag, Tirith tried frantically to push the thoughts away before any tears came. Immortality had hardened night elf women as their eternal wait while the men slept left them to toughen up against a harsh, unforgiving world of endless night; the return of mortality had brought a rush of new sensations, experiences, physical changes and also realizations as their impending deaths taught them to value life again. Like most, Tirith had become emotional again, and after having felt little to nothing for so long, she'd long since forgotten how to cope with emotions. Whenever she felt sad, she found herself crying more easily than many of the orcs and humans; whenever she felt mad, she had to restrain herself from harming people who didn't deserve it. Breathing in the humid jungle air, she did her best to tame what had become one of her great challenges since her emotional awakening.

Wait...people.

Her ears picked up the sound. For weeks they hadn't received any visitors after dark, and on those occasions when they did, they were usually visitors they'd been informed of in advance who had simply taken too long to arrive. On that particular night, there had been no news passed on to her of any approaching guests; this was unexpected, and Tirith instinctively shadowmelded, becoming transparent and unseen per the blessing of nature that her people retained.

Very slowly, she tugged on the rope that lowered the tall but narrow wooden gate, making sure to keep the outpost secure should those approaching be hostile. Should that be the case, she'd need to make the warning call to wake the rest of the barracks. She'd be at personal risk by remaining outside and revealing her position; that was her duty, though for the sake of a faction she somewhat resented, it didn't seem like an entirely easy decision.

"...Camp Freedom, right? I can see the lights of the torches up ahead..."

The nervous voice of a gnome echoed in the trees, and she could tell that a mixed group was close. Crouching after having closed the gate, she readied her glaive lest those approaching carried unsheathed weapons. Just because they were members of races considered part of the Alliance didn't mean that they were friendly. She'd encountered plenty of bandits and highway robbers in the past half year, and in fact most of them were humans.

When the party of six came into view, however, her heart fluttered and her arms turned to jelly.

There, among the two humans and two gnomes, were also not one but _two other night elves_. Excitement welled up inside as Tirith counted the weeks since she'd last bumped into one of her own kind; there were perhaps only a hundred thousand of her kind left alive compared to millions of the other races. While Kalimdor was full of their new allies, this continent had very few Kaldorei. Every time she encountered more of her people out there, she felt like it was a miniature holiday.

Immediately, she broke her shadowmeld, pulled the rope suspending the gate and secured it to an anchor that had been hammered down into the soil. The two gnomes, both of them technical workers without weapons, jumped behind their comrades in fright, though the humans both wore the robes of mages and appeared unafraid.

Her attention was focused on her two fellow children of the stars, however. One of them was a man about her height - as a sort of dragoon, Tirith had been chosen due to her large stature - bearing the antlers of a Druid from the older generations. The other was a woman who was about a head shorter than them both, but bearing a glaive rather than a bow - obviously a flanker and quick strike fighter. Like their companions, they looked tired, hungry and greatly relieved to see the camp.

"Ishnu alah!" Tirith chanted happily to the entire group as they stopped before her and the gate, all of them on foot. "What brings you here?"

Jumping in before anyone else could speak, the male human began rattling off a list of demands. "Hail, sentry. We've been traveling all day since we underestimated the distance here. We're in serious need of quarter and provisions, and we have the gold to spend."

"I'm tired!" complained one of the gnomes.

"Is there a public bath, here?" asked the female human.

Amused as she often was at the very forward and open behavior of the younger races, Tirith wondered how exhausting the two night elves must find their traveling companions. A swift sense of solidarity set in as she glanced at the glowing eyes of similarly ancient beings who found themselves surrounded by talkitive, unwise people who had seen so little. Perhaps these would be people she could finally speak to freely, if just to feel as though she weren't lost and alone in unfamiliar territory.

Her fantasy about having a connection to them was quickly wiped away by reality when her fellow sentinel spoke.

"I second that one," the female night elf chuckled while politely holding her hand over her mouth. She and the human _practitioner of arcane magic_ actually shared a friendly look as if there was some sort of...inside joke, or something, between them.

A bit of jealousy stung Tirith's heart despite not knowing any of these people. That other night elf was a member of _her_ people, from _her_ homeland, and should be making inside jokes with _her_. A desire she readily admitted to herself was immature struck her and she wished the other sentinel wouldn't behave in such a familiar manner with outlanders.

Realizing that she had a job to do, Tirith stiffened up and tried to suppress her wants. "Our camp is modest; inside, there is a traveler's hostel that contains outhouse and bathing rooms, but they are only for two people at a time; we will not have the capacity for multiple facilities until after our coming expansion," she explained to the entire group in Common, at least feeling rather proud of herself for using such vocabulary without needing to practice first.

Much to her further chagrin, the male night elf disappointed her as well.

"We'll need to accept whatever you have; our party took some time getting here and we might need to remain for a day or so." His tone was just like that of the male human, and he spoke to her as if she were a stranger and the outlanders around him were not.

Her hopes of people to open up to dashed, Tirith withdrew into her shell as she'd done so many times around the outlanders, only this time two of her own kind were present. Let down and disinterested once more, she reverted to her monotone sentinel voice in order to fulfill her job description and get the whole interaction over with. "You may find a number of our residents still awake inside; just follow the sound of their music, and they will likely be overjoyed to see visitors. They can direct you to all of our facilities."

"Thank you so much, lady!" piped up one of the two gnomes from below, though Tirith couldn't tell which one it was since they all looked the same to her anyway.

Standing at attention and saluting as the group walked through the gate, she held out just a sliver of hope that the two night elves would choose to stay behind and keep her company, proving her assumptions wrong and sating her desire for friendship. No such thing happened, and all six people entered Camp Freedom while chatting amongst themselves as if she were shadowmelded again.

Ignored and let down, Tirith sighed to herself once the party had disappeared among the camp buildings. The raucous laughter and greetings that echoed out as the party was greeted by the other residents only made her feel even more left out, and she busied herself by marching back and forth for an amount of time she couldn't measure. If one group had already arrived that night, chances that another would as well were slim to nil, but she had nothing else to do and needed to ward off the sense of loneliness.

Truthfully, she never had been a loner; she realized that now. Even if her little hamlet had been small, she had always been surrounded by people. On short patrols through their part of the forest, they would still work in units of four women; nobody was ever left alone. They were constantly around each other, all the time, and had to grow used to the closeness for there was no other choice. The intense isolation of being so far away...

For the longest time, Tirith just tried to shut that thought out and control her breathing as she froze by the gate. It wouldn't do her any good to think like that; she was on a rotational assignment and had no choice in the matter. She was a sentinel, and in her wisdom, the High Priestess had ordered these rotations and troop sharings with their new allies. The only alternative was to quit and wait to die; all of her branch of the Nightshade family died in the Sundering. Her parents...her siblings...her husband...her son from her first marriage...

Footsteps. Someone was leaving the camp. Silently thanking Elune for the distraction, she sniffled once and cleared her throat in anticipation of another pointless question that would nonetheless be welcome at that time.

"Ishnu dal dieb, sister; I hope I am not intruding."

The Darnassian sentence uplifted Tirith's spirit so quickly that she thought she might be dreaming. Turning around, she saw the sentinel from earlier out of her gear and wearing a dress and shawl that could be slept in. The woman had come back to speak to her; even if it was only for a moment, she found a bit of her faith restored.

"Oh...no, not at all!" Tirith replied a bit too eagerly. "You're all guests of the settlement while you're here."

"You're too kind, sentinel; my name is Soraya, by the way. My colleague is Pontus." The woman leaned against the side of the gate, worn out from her party's journey but apparently content to spend some time with Tirith.

"I'm Tirith Nightshade, at your service. It's so glad to see more of us out here."

"I know what you mean; the culture shock can be intense at times. It's always nice to hold on to a bit of home when venturing out in this brave new world." The woman inspected Tirith's skin and hair color and the facial tattoos that were a marker of individuality for adult women in their culture. "Nightsong Forest?" Soraya asked, obviously sizing her up as often was the case among their kind.

"Yes, from Raynewood province. A village that the Alliance refers to as Serenity Grove." Tirith almost felt guilty referring to her home by that name; her local priestess had never seen the need to name their village, but the Alliance insisted on formally recorded names for everything. Switching the subject, she opened up a little more quickly than usual. "I am originally from Suramar, however."

Soraya immediately bowed lowly toward Tirith out of respect. "You're pre-Sundering then; I am truly honored, big sister," the woman said, almost in awe due to the respect for age.

Flattered and a world apart from the disappointment she'd felt earlier, Tirith couldn't stifle her little laugh. "May you be granted long life, Soraya. I take it from your accent that you're from Azshara?"

The woman frowned. "Yes...Pontus and I are both from Nendis. We just happened to be out of town at the same time just when Illidan's forces arrived," Soraya lamented, her face contorted in pain without pretense.

"May the curse of all nature be upon the Betrayer! I was devastated when I heard about the loss of that city; it was as old as Suramar, you know. I visited it, back before your time."

The two of them sat silently for a beat, not needing to fill every single silent moment with the sound of talking. Over the ticking seconds, the pain drained out of Soraya's expression until she appeared to have relaxed again. The loss of such an ancient city a mere two years or so before still hurt for many of them, but a measure of pride and defiance worked its way into Soraya's features. "One day, we will rebuild. Our people are reproducing again, and we have an obligation to our youth to preserve our heritage."

The mention of youth reminded her of her son a bit too much, and Tirith found herself unsure of how to react to mentions of reproduction when it was so far removed from her life. "May all of our land be reclaimed again, some day," she replied, not knowing what else to say. Soraya only nodded, and was obviously still affected by the loss of her hometown - which Tirith understood all too well. After a few moments in which she worried her new friend would return to her quarters a bit too soon, she tried to find anything to say. "So how did you become associated with these...comrades?" she asked euphemistically. Because the outlanders were the woman's friends, Tirith didn't know how much she could open up, and tried to be as politically correct as possible.

Soraya's mood improved visibly; she looked pleasant but it caused Tirith to feel a little bit more distant from her. "They're great people, a fascinating bunch, really. By chance, Pontus and I were both assigned to Stormwind in order to open a consulate there. While I was observing him as he grew the building, our four colleagues here wandered up and began asking what we were doing. They eventually ended up inviting us to dinner and we've been traveling with them ever since." A wistful look twinkled in Soraya's eye in a way that sparked Tirith's racial jealousy again. "They convinced us to travel to this port at the Cape of Stranglethorn; it really has been quite the adventure so far!"

"I'll bet," Tirith replied while doing her best to feign interest. "And what's this about a consulate to Stormwind?"

"That's recent - you're only hearing about it from me unofficially. Darnassus doesn't like to announce projects until they're more or less complete. But basically since we're members of this faction now, the Alliance as a whole is in charge of constructing embassies to other nations like the Steamwheedle Cartel, the Argent Dawn and so forth; but within the faction, the various governors exchange consuls in order to build unity in our own nation. We should be open by next month, and you'll have an easier time handling your administrative affairs due to the proximity - you can ride for a few days down to that Bay's Boot or whatever and then catch a ship to Stormwind - that takes less than a week."

Tirith had to resist the urge to grit her teeth at the suggestion that they belonged to one 'nation' alongside the outlanders who had spoiled her ancestral grove. "I'll definitely keep that in mind; as it is, orders and directives are shipped from Darnassus first and then sorted in Stormwind," she said as congenially as possible, reminding herself that Soraya was her sister and surely meant well.

"It most certainly will be easier!" the oblivious woman chirped proudly. "We have full authority for disbursements, troop sharing and logistical affairs on this continent. Whenever you visit our capitol, you ought to drop by. I'm sure you'll find no shortage of new people to meet."

 _That human eyesore is not my capitol city_ , Tirith involuntarily grumbled in her own mind. "Rest assured that I will stop by the next time I find myself there; and I thank you for the information."

"Don't mention it," Soraya replied while fighting off a yawn. "We're going to remain here until the day after tomorrow, so I'll have time to adjust to my new sleep schedule. I'm going to return to our quarters for now, but we'll be seeing you tomorrow evening."

"We're glad to have you here," Tirith said while bowing. Soraya made sure to bow lower before leaving, reminding Tirith that the woman was kind and friendly toward her despite the differing points of view.

Alone once more and well into her shift, she finally closed the gate from the inside for the night. A rather short, ineffective watchtower had been constructed inside the camp walls, giving her a place to sit down despite being on duty. It was the first time in her entire long, long life that she'd ever shirked work responsibilities while patrolling, and the significance wasn't lost on her.

Stars and constellations passed overhead, and she spent much of the rest of her shift counting them as she actually admitted that she felt bored. At the twilight of her lifespan, she had no living family, no more community of shield sisters to return to, no place of her own to live and no real plan. But as she looked at the creases on the palms of her hands and counted the years since she'd become mortal again, a plan began to develop.

"No..." Tirith whispered to herself. "I'm not going to die in this place."


	3. March 8, year 24, A

_March 8, year 24_

Dark purple soaked into the bristles of the paintbrush as Tirith dipped it into the colored liquid. The odor of the paint was mild and harmless, and she absolutely loved it as she closed her eyes and felt the softness again. For so long, she had been a painter before the world had been rent asunder by demons. Centuries were spent in Suramar where she painted every single day, both for herself and for...buildings. It had been so long ago that she could no longer remember if she sold her art to galleries or simply gifted it to people. At her age, it was difficult to keep track but none of that really mattered. The experience was hers, burned into her memory, from before the world was invaded by demons for the first time all the way to when she waited for them to return, painting much less frequently at Serenity but still earning the admiration of all her shield sisters as she brightened up the monotonous days with her work.

And there she was after the world was invaded by demons for the second time, trying her hand at the craft once more. So relaxing did it feel that minutes felt like hours, every joyous moment stretching out for her despite the sorrow she felt as her heart bled onto the canvas.

It was Soraya who had sent the easel to her from Stormwind after she'd humbled herself enough to ask. Even on Tirith's days off, it was so difficult to fill the time in at such a remote location; she drank very little, couldn't stand what the others claimed was music, and was constantly irritated by the tendency of human and gnome men to stare if her clothes revealed even an inch of skin. Brainstorming for ideas of where she would go and what she would do with her life could only fill up so much time on her one day weekend, the one day where she was supposed to feel relaxed and comfortable.

The art supplies were perfect, however. Soraya had sent her enough to keep her busy for quite some time, and now that they'd finally arrived, she knew what she'd be doing for the entire day off. All the other women had already left the barracks for their breakfast; for Tirith, who had already gotten off her night shift, it was staying up late rather than waking up early. She could always sleep in at nightfall, her real break, to make up for lost time.

Because at that moment, she was channeling something. Strokes of dark greens and dark purples marked the canvas as she bled her heart out onto the material in a way that she just couldn't do with words. The colors of Ashenvale filled in the background, and she could almost feel it - like the could feel the jungly humidity in the pores of her skin, she could feel it - as her shield sisters were around her again.

The largest family in their ancestral grove had no last name - they hadn't earned one before the Sundering, and thus never adopted one. That was fine - all of them were like family, and the names didn't matter so much. Their vibrant, eye catching, ultramarine hair wafting in the air as they spun, they were constantly the center of attention. The sisters Silviel and Cioniel in particular were the most fun and energetic to be around, and were rather close despite their vast age disparity. Neither of them were talented painters but they always tried to follow along while keeping everyone else busy, never growing tired of light conversation despite how many years passed. Their niece Fewen was by far the best singer and dancer in the grove, and often entertained the others all by herself; merriment didn't come as freely or easily to elves as it did the younger races, but that entire big family of three generations in one village certainly kept everyone else happy. Ultramarine locks glistened in the starlight as elves held hands in a circle and sang, enchanting the woodlands even more than they already were.

Isurith, the quiet and stoic daughter of one of the sacred grove's founders, was the only other painter who was truly skilled, though not quite as talented as Tirith herself. They used to paint side by side in order to see if they could create mirror images of the same picture, and it felt real - so real - as Tirith stood before her easel in the women's barracks at Camp Freedom. Isurith was there with her, in spirit if not in body...the muscles at the sides of her eyes began to crinkle as she felt a jolt of emotion she couldn't explain. Alone and away from the rest of the camp, she didn't suppress how she felt, and continued her brush strokes as she explored feelings she usually kept locked away.

A circle of lighter colors began to form - purples and blues, all of them, as she filled out the various skin tones of the women of Serenity. Topping it all off were more purples and blues but greens as well - none of their people had green skin, but many of them did have green hair. Nobody in their village had silver hair although some families elsewhere did; all the silver in the picture was reserved for their sparse trappings as nearly half of their village appeared on the canvas before her. Memory took over reality as Tirith felt the soft grass beneath her; sitting cross legged, all of them held hands, one of the few instances during which excessive touch was acceptable among them.

Rocking, swaying and chanting, all of them followed the lead of the young Fewen at the end of her coming of age ceremony; Vadia would be next, but that night happened to be Fewen's night. Still recovering from the painful process of having her facial tattoos magically written onto her face by the power of the moon, the relatively young elf chanted along with the others as she stood in the center of the circle. She wept during her ceremony as Tirith wept in the barracks, and pride filled the older elf's heart as they saw life move on in a blessing to their community in the form of another brave young woman who would undertake their duty to nature.

Standing next to Fewen in the center was their village priestess, the woman assigned by Tyrande Whisperwind herself at the base of Nordrassil to scout a suitable grove in that region of Nightsong Forest in order to found a settlement that would allow the largest possible area to be monitored and protected. An entire living, breathing network became one with the planet itself as no square mile was left unpatrolled and unwatched, thanks to the efforts of local priestesses like Lamynia. The elf who was beyond ancient held Fewen's hands in hers as the girl sang the chorus that marked her transition into a woman; an entirely psychological transition, but one that deeply affected them all. Above both of their heads spun an elven bow; finely crafted by wisps and glowing with the power of the Goddess, Tirith couldn't remember if it had hovered for real or if it was an illusion, symbolic of the blessed task that Fewen swore to uphold until eternity's end.

Even when Khadijah walked into the barracks carrying a stack of books, memory refused to yield to reality; for the first time ever, Tirith didn't hide her feelings or flashbacks from an outlander. Perhaps it was because of the human's kind nature, or perhaps Tirith's connection to her sisters across space and time, at that moment, was simply too strong to be broken. All the same, she barely felt it when Khadijah set her books down, smiled to admire the painting, then noticed that Tirith was crying and whispered something polite before leaving and granting her privacy. The other presence was a mere afterthought as all the things that normally stressed the ageing sentinel out disappeared.

More shades of the various colors were mixed, using water to get the details just right. Even though most of her sisters had their backs facing toward the viewer's perspective, Tirith knew how to paint every detail of their hairstyles back at that time, every battle scar they carried from their duties fighting off centaur, harpies and satyr, every intricate difference in the tattoos that the older women had all over their bodies in addition to their faces.

Most detailed of all were the White Lady shining above and her representative below. Priestess Lamynia's hair color was a unique shade that they referred to as phlox; the humans had an equivalent term in their dictionaries but few of them recognized the subtle differences. Tirith painted every strand of that hair, every detail of Lamynia's face, devoting most of her efforts to op first perfecting their village's sole leader, counselor, medium and holy woman, a being that they all held a sororal love for that wouldn't be understood by any other race of people.

Although she fully intended to finish the rest of those who had been present for Fewen's coming of age ceremony - exceptions could never be made to patrol duty and a few of the sentries still had to keep watch over their enclosed, hidden grove - she fully intended to finish every one of them eventually. There would be time. Even if she didn't have endless time like she once did, she would have time to create more art.

The moon at the top of the picture spoke to her no matter where she went, and the stars followed like dutiful attendants. Like Elune and Her Sisterhood; like the High Priestess and her local appointees; like Lamynia and the women of Serenity.

So enraptured was she that she let her guard down, and didn't notice the dwarf who had entered the doorway and stared at her angrily.

"Solider I just called you five times! Are those big ears of yours filled with wax?"

For a few seconds, utter shock and confusion took over Tirith's mind as the rude awakening pulled her unwillingly from her wistful past. It was so unexpected that the question as to whether it was real or not couldn't formulate in her mind, and her vision blurred as the ceremonial circle was replaced by canvas inside a wooden barrack. A heavy, enormous presence occupied the entire room, smothering her and distracting her in the most disorienting way possible.

"Hellooo? Are you falling out of practice in your Common or something?" Marge asked in the most snide way possible. "Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?"

Heart pounding and full of so many different emotions, Tirith slowly faced her commanding officer, an insect a mere fraction of her own age. Two bug eyes burned at her, as if the easel wasn't even there and the night elf had simply been wasting time (on her own damn day off). Marge didn't even display one ounce of sympathy for the fact that one of her loyal troops was crying alone in a corner, ignoring the tears streaming down Tirith's cheeks entirely and granting the tall woman no respite or privacy in order to pull herself together.

"Article fifty three: all commanding officers in remote areas reserve the right to assign overtime to military personnel in times of legitimate threat. Bandits were sighted wearing the gear of the Syndicate to the south. Five completes an entire part and everyone else is busy. Gear up and get out here in ten minutes." When Tirith continued staring at Marge, suppressing her increasing rage at how heartless the short woman was in light of such emotional distress, Marge only become more confrontational. "Article twenty six: all commanding officers have the right to assign punitive janitorial duties as well. One article or two; take your pick and get your ass out here. You've got ten minutes."

As Marge marched out of the barracks triumphantly, Tirith almost surprised herself by the image in her mind of scratching the power hungry dwarf's eyes out with her claw like fingernails. Khadijah had been so gentle when observing the creative process; the way Marge acted infuriated the night elf so much that she didn't even want to try to understand it.

Next to Tirith's bunk in the far corner was an empty supply closet that was extraneous, and the rest of the military women stationed there had ceded it to her. Carefully setting the easel and all the supplies inside, she ignored the congestion in her nose and sniffled as she tried to regain control of her spiraling emotions. Donning her armor tended to help in that regard, as it gave her something cold and objective to focus on. This might be her weekend, but the commanding officer did have the right to call up overtime for something as serious as these Syndicate people she'd heard of. Why couldn't the dwarf who always did her hair in that awful beehive just show a modicum of respect about the matter?

To exercise her only form of protest, Tirith took the entire ten minutes to prepare whe she'd have been capable of doing so in only two. Over so many years, she'd learned to measure time exactly and subconsciously, not even thinking about it but always measuring just on time. By the time she'd suited up, she at least looked presentable and had sacrificed a bit more of her cardiovascular health in order to repress her feelings for release at a later time.

Outside, a part of four was waiting, and Marge had just finished briefing the group. Despite the fact that Tirith had arrived in time, the dwarf simply walked away, refusing to let the Amazon warrior even know what she was getting herself into.

"Tell her what she needs to know," Marge said to the local captain, a human paladin by the name Nicholas, while pointing rudely at Tirith. Before anybody could say anything, Marge dipped in between more of the cramped, densely packed buildings, leaving the five to themselves.

The two stalwart dwarves that often guarded the gate during the day shift were there. Since they were always together, Tirith couldn't tell them apart but their ridiculously heavy armor made them assets to keep around. The fifth person was a half human half high elf mage named Persephone, which Tirith assumed must have sounded elven to the girl's human parent. The crackle of her arcane staff offended and irritated the night elf to no end, but as was often the case, she had no room to criticize.

"We need to get moving fast; the civilians that just arrived here were pretty hysterical, and we should be able to catch these miscreants if we move now. Huntress Nightshade, we've procured a Clydesdale for you." Nicholas snapped his fingers at a young man the humans referred to as a squire, who promptly dashed outside the main gate. "We have to move fast."

All five of them exited the camp, finding two shaggy rams for the dwarves, a white stallion for the human, a pony for the half elf and the animal which Nicholas had apparently been referring to when he used the new word 'Clydesdale.' Commensurate to her great height, Tirith felt flattered that they'd brought her a mount but flabbergasted as to how the setup would work.

"Permission to speak, Captain Nicholas?" she politely requested, cringing a bit when she had to lower herself to referring to a veritable infant as her superior despite the man's professionalism.

"Of course, soldier; what is it?" he asked once the rest of the party had already mounted.

"Are you sure that the climate here is suitable for such hairy mounts? They will need to rest frequently."

"We've considered that already, but if we're facing a band of highway robbers, then we'll need to conserve our own energy first and foremost. I do _not_ leave good soliders behind," he told her nobly in a tone he probably thought was reassuring.

Nodding in spite of her disagreement with the human placement of valor over logic, Tirith ran a hand beneath the large horse's chin, whispering to it in Darnassian as she let it sense her connection to the balance. On cue, it nuzzled her before rotating so she'd have an easier time mounting, earning an approving aww from the half elf.

Uneasy, uneven and cumbersome, the five mounts from colder climates began to traverse the narrow dirt path leading through the jungle, moving at a decent pace but panting heavily as the party traveled. Nicholas recapped what Marge had told them along the way.

"We just received a group of seven travelers, mostly civilians, bursting in through the gate," the paladin explained. "They were chased by a group of bandits in cheap rags but wearing gear often associated with the Syndicate. It's most likely just some scavengers who are trying to intimidate people on the highway, but a threat nonetheless. One of the members of the group marked the spot on our map here," he said while pointing to an X that Tirith could barely see from her position in the middle of the column, "which is where we're headed. If we can catch these hoodlums, we won't have the facilities to make an arrest; we'll have to resort to scare tactics, perhaps even corporal punishment. Summary executions are absolutely out of the question unless they prove truly dangerous - which I doubt."

When Nicholas appeared a bit dizzy from explaining all that in the jungle heat, Tirith fought off her drowsiness to press for more information. The excursion was entirely unexpected, on her day off and at a time when she'd be better off sleeping; she didn't need any surprises. "How many were sighted, and how heavily armed?" she asked dryly.

Always positive toward her work attitude, Nicholas found a second wind and continued talking. "The travelers claimed that they saw only six bandits, but those six had them so spooked that they fled anyway. Their clothing looked unwashed and their weapons were rusty; we're most likely looking at a ragtag group here, otherwise Marge would have sent a more sizeable force. Come on, now; we have over an hour of riding before we can inspect the entire area in question." At that, the paladin clicked his heels and sent his stallion into a faster trot, leaving all the other mounts huffing and puffing while struggling to keep up.

Nearly two hours passed due to the fatigue of the mounts as well as the riders under the canopy and the thick jungle air it held in. At the first sound of a stream, they'd left the beaten path so the mounts could drink and rest, and nobody in the party complained either. The human and two dwarves were sweating profusely, and the half elf often let out exaggerated sighs of exhaustion to garner pity. For Tirith's part, she was legitimately exhausted; they were well into the morning and she'd worked a shift during the previous night. Her oversized horse allowed her to move as little as possible, but even with the interference that the light of day caused in her vision, she could still tell that the animal was completely out of its element.

Before long, the party members themselves had to stop and eat the meager rations they'd brought, leaving the finicky animals to forage amount the foreign plant life. There was only a quarter of an hour to reach their patrol point, and after inspection they could double back. The only problem was that it was off the dirt road and into the wilderness; they'd have to guide their hooved animals over damp, uneven terrain between the thick underbrush. Nobody was particularly keen on what they had to do next, yet the half elf seemed intent on using her bubbly nature to unsuccessfully try to break the grueling trip.

"Hey Tirith," Persephone piped up from behind her in the ambling column of hooves. "Hey Tirith. Hey Tirith! Tirith! Hey?"

The girl would likely go on like that until she received some sort of acknowledgement; even if she was half elf, her behavior was totally human. "Yes?" the full blooded elf finally asked.

"My dad said they build lodges back where he comes from. Do your people have lodges, too?"

"Yes."

"Hah, oh, wow! That's really interesting!" Tirith shut her eyes for a moment to avoid smacking the girl in the back of the head, though this only encouraged her hyperactive conversation. "Did you know that our language uses the same letters as your language?"

"Yes, I've seen-"

"Tirith, can you understand me when I talk like this?" Persephone asked in the most godawful broken Thalassian with a human's accent.

"The languages are mutually intelligible; they're only considered two separate languages instead of just two dialects due to political-"

"Wow I can't believe I'm speaking elvish!"

"Elven."

"My dad is a mage, what's yours?"

"Dead."

"That's really cool - um, wait, sorry to hear that. I'm a mage too!"

"That wasn't very difficult to guess."

"Hard to tell, isn't it?" Persephone asked as if she literally wasn't listening to whatever Tirith said at all. "You know I totally think that when my dad's people decided to move away from Kalimdor it was all just a big misunderstanding. I mean, like, how different are mages from Druids anyway?"

Nicholas stiffened up on the back of his stallion. "Uhh..."

"A _lot_ different. Druids don't unleash mana storms that obliterate entire patches of forest at one time."

"Yeah, but it was the Druids that did that," Persephone countered, her tone holding the utmost sincerity as if she truly believed that.

"What...rrgh...did you listen at all to what I just said?"

"Yeah, the Druids released all these big hurricanes and so the highborne had to sail across the ocean because everything was all crazy and stuff."

"Hey, good news, we're almost to the inspection point!" Nicholas practically shouted.

"But you guys are in the Alliance now so it's okay, my dad said that totally we forgive you," the irritating half elf practically chirped as if it were the most magnanimous sentence that had ever been uttered.

Gritting her molar teeth and puffing her chest out in reaction to the surge in her heart rate, Tirith tried to find the best way to deal with an idiot without being dragged to the idiot's level and beaten with experience. "Was your father there?"

"Yeah, no, yeah, no, yeah. No. He was born way after all that stuff happened, thank the Light. One of our ancestors was sacrificed to the moon by this one priestess, it was totally crazy."

"Persephone!" Nicholas shouted as he turned around to see her. "That's enough!"

The entire column bumped to a stop on the difficult terrain, and the girl's pony whinnied uneasily. Her face was a mixture of shock and legitimate offense, as if she'd been done wrong. "What's enough, captain? I'm just trying to break the monotony, why are you all up in my face!" she squeaked in a pitch so loud that it hurt Tirith's ears.

"Unless there's some sort of crisis happening, I don't want to hear a peep-"

"I feel like I'm being attacked here!" Persephone cried out.

One of the dwarves groaned and facepalmed, and Tirith felt a small twinge of victory to see the brainwashed arcane practitioner put in her place. A small flock of parrots jumped a few yards away in the jungle, likely scared by the half elf's frantic fretting.

"Listen-"

"Do you hate me, captain?" she asked in an ugly pre-crying face that surely must have been faked.

The second dwarf stifled a laugh from behind, though the captain didn't seem particularly pleased at the young mage's immaturity. "Oh for God's sake," Nicholas huffed while yanking his entire helmet off. From his expression, it was obvious that he was much more irritated than he was letting in, and he did a remarkable job of restraining his voice despite the fact that he was merely half a century old. "Are you-"

"CAPTAIN NICHOLAS WAIT PUT YOUR HELMET BACK ON!" Persephone screamed so loudly that every single one of the five mounts bucked and panicked.

Just as Tirith had heard enough and was about to grab ahold of the girl, she realized why Persephone had changed her mind. The arrow sailed right into the back of the paladin's skull, killing the group's only healer instantly.


	4. March 8, year 24, B

_March 8, year 24_

A sickening sound rang out as a crude but well aimed arrow impaled Captain Nicholas in the head; the entire shaft traveled through his skull and a triangular form tried to force its way through the skin of his forehead. It stopped short of breaking the skin, settling for tearing his brain in half instead at a speed which the ancient night elf would have respected - had it not ended the life of one of the few humans she actually liked. His arcanite helmet that would have stood against a hundred such projectiles tumbled to the ground, echoing as it tumbled down the roots.

Before a single other shot was fired, Tirith had reached forward, grabbed the paladin's hammer and tossed it in the direction from which the arrow came. She hadn't practiced in throwing a blunt weapon for three thousand years, but the split second during which she reared back her throwing arm was all she needed to test its weight and form. Persephone didn't even have the common sense to scream until the hammer sent a shockwave into the surrounding roots when it took the unseen bandit archer's head and part of his neck clean off. And Tirith knew how much of is neck had come off, because the decapitated body tumbled forward through its hiding place in the bushes just as the half elf began to scream.

Despite their stocky builds, the two dwarven Warriors were already on the ground before the next few arrows came flying. Tirith's respect for them increased tenfold when they almost raised their shields at the same time she did, just in time to shield the party's mage from an entire wave of unprofessionally fletched arrows, a crude wooden spear and a few rocks. It all happened so fast, but none of them were particularly skilled shots; in spite of her rage at her fallen comrade and the stupidity of Persephone, Tiirth steeled her nerves and rotated her ears as the onslaught bounced off her moon blessed elven shield.

The arrows, spears and rocks bounced off the metal and reverberated in a disorienting way, but it was nothing new for her. Through the ringing and cacophony she could still hear the grunts and breathing of seven, nine, thirteen - wait, only twelve people. They didn't have mounts, and already one of the rams had been fatally injured while charging into a group of what sounded like three assailants. She didn't need to look; her ears were enough.

"Triangle!" she yelled at the two dwarves, and they immediately understood and obeyed.

Shielding the sobbing half elf in the middle, the three heavily armored fighters waited out the never ending wave of poorly aimed, poorly constructed projectiles. These were members of younger races; had they possessed any magic or bombs, they would have used them already. And at the rate at which they were firing, they would deplete their stocks rather quickly - they would not have been able to hide from her so well, even when she was distracted by the mage's idiocy, had they been carrying extra supplies.

Casting her aversion to the accursed arcane aside, Tirith made an easy compromise if it meant she wouldn't die on someone else's terms. "Persephone, blast them right now!" she yelled at the scared young half elf.

"Noooo! Noooo by the Light, why me! I'm too young to-"

"Shut up and cast or I will toss you to them as an offering!"

Legitimately afraid of the night elf, Persephone clutched her staff with shaky hands and cast some sort of silvery white energy blast madly, knocking debris, tree branches and some sort of furry tailed mammals in all directions. The bodies of several bandits tumbled, though their limbs snapped as they foolishly tried to resist their falls and Tirith knew they were still alive. As if her confidence had been partially restored, Persephone began to overnuke, and her staff began to smolder. Aggro focused on her as the remaining footsteps burst out of the bushes toward the triangle, and the tattered, dirtied clothing of desperate and starving highway robbers came into view. Sure enough, colors mimicking the group known as the Syndicate were being worn; this was obviously a ragtag band of thieves who were willing to do anything for food, money and water; the civilians who had arrived at the camp truly were lucky.

Their mage's mana spent and the onslaught of misfired projectiles ended, Tirith broke formation and moved forward, picking a group of three humans and an Orc before charging. Two of them were slammed to the ground by her shield, and she made sure to trample them beneath her large frame before knocking a third off to the side. The fourth had dodged, only to have his blade hand severed by her glaive. There was no need to make sure they were all dead; such scavengers were diseased wolves hunting for scraps, and would likely flee if their targets proved to me more trouble than they were worth.

As she turned, she saw the valiant dwarves charging into three more humans, slashing at their legs and bellies. The diminutive stature of the two beared slayers proved an asset, as they easily defended upward with their shields while striking so low that their interlocutors were forced to sacrifice their height advantage just to protect their knees. Her vision was cut by the sound of the human she'd knocked to the side stirring, and a sideways cut across his eyes and nose prevented him from stabbing her in the exposed part of her thigh.

"No do!" bellowed the voice of an ogre, heretofore heard and smelled but unseen.

Raising her shield to deflect another rock thrown her way, Tirith was just able to see one of the courageous dwarves smashed in the back of the head by a gigantic, blubbery coward. A surprisingly well crafted mace broke the short man's helmet, knocking him to his knees but failing to kill him in an incredible display of constitution. Ignoring the three injured humans before him, the second dwarf spun around and let out a battle cry before cutting the ogre across its belly. The sheer amount of fat bled profusely but seemed to provide an excellent buffer, and the horned fat man shoved his mace against the dwarf's shield. A pushing match ensued in which the ogre failed to make the dwarf budge, granting Tirith just enough time to leap over the injured human throwing rocks and kick the ogre in the lower back.

"Owwie!" the ogre yelped as it dropped its mace and stumbled even closer toward Tirith, and she took the opportunity to loop her arm around its from behind, drop her butt lower than its and shift her weight. Like the pendulum of a giant gnomish clock, the ogre flew legs over head as she judo tossed it over her shoulders and into the rock throwing human, crushing him to death instantly.

Tirith's skill and tact outpaced her aging body's conditioning, and she heaved more than she'd anticipated when throwing the ogre. When it crashed into the human, she stumbled, letting herself fall to one knee to avoid tumbling and coughing as she sucked in air. The muscles of her back right behind her lungs stung her, but she powered through it and stood up again, albeit more slowly than she would have a mere three and a half years before when she was still immortal.

That delay proved to be the undoing of the fallen dwarf; a limping Orc who had previously been knocked down by an arcane blast of the strangely absent Persephone stabbed the warrior's open head wound with a rusty sword, ending the life of an honorable man just as the three injured humans the two dwarves at previously been thrashing attacked the remaining dwarf from behind. Emotion coursed through Tirith's veins beyond her control, and she threw her moon glaive at the right angle such that it bounced directly back to her after splitting open the orc's head, neck and left shoulder.

It was a temporary lapse in reason unbefitting such an ancient being, and she regretted her rage fueled decision the moment she felt the arrow plunge into her thigh. Most sentinels wore incredibly heavy armor except in their necks, biceps and thighs for the sake of mobility; their prowess and alertness would protect those body parts. That prowess and alertness depending on cold, calculating logic, but Tirith's renewed mortal passions and internal chemical changes canceled that out and left her as vulnerable as the much younger dwarves. A second fling of her glaive ended the miserable life of whatever archer had shot her, but she could feel her quadriceps tightening around the sharp arrowhead.

"Persephone! Cast, damn you!" Tirith growled in Thalassian, hoping that the culturally human half elf would understand her.

Two of the injured humans ahead were felled by the second dwarf's axe, and the third turned tail and fled rather than face the elf and the dwarf, even when at least five of his comrades were still alive.

The ogre stumbled to his feet, rising up to meet Tirith's eyes. Brief familiarity flashed between them as she ignored the pain in her leg and dropped into her stance, baring her fangs in anticipation of removing all his fingers. That familiarity was cut off whe he looked right past her in fear.

"Tigers!" the ogre cried as it turned tail and fled as well, knocking aside an orange flash as it did so.

"Help! Heeeeaaaaarggggh!" screamed the voice of one of the few remaining human bandits as her voice was cut off by gurgling and growling.

To Tirith's horror, more orange and black stripes appeared all around them; the din of the skirmish in the jungle had attacked opportunists.

All was chaos as the remaining bandits, who had kept the group surrounded and thus remained outside the circle of battle, were the first victims of the carnivorous felines. Another squeak was heard just outside the area and Tirith looked beyond a pair of tigers feasting on her Clydesdale to see Persephone on a hill above it all.

"I'm sorry Tirith, I'm so sorry! Please forgive me, but I'm too young to die!"

At that, the cowardly girl cast some sort of a teleportation spell and abandoned Tirith and the second dwarf, leaving them without support or mounts - all their riding animals were picked off by the tigers in seconds.

"You bitch, you absolute-"

Tirith's curse was cut off by an intense, excruciating pain in her leg and a strongly felt pulse in that side of her body. She knew it immediately; during the Long Vigil, each woman of Serenity was poisoned in order for them to recognize the signs. All of that was performed under the careful watch of Priestess Lamynia, who ensured that none of them were truly in danger during their fortuitous test. No matter how much time had passed, Tirith always remembered what it felt like to be poisoned. Accepting the blood loss in order to prevent more of the stinging liquid from infecting her system, she yanked the arrow out of her leg, immediately noticing that the poison it had been coated in was colorless and odorless. Throwing it perfectly like a dart into the neck of one of the tigers, she turned just in time to slice open the abdomen of another that had tried to pounce on her.

During her poison induced haze, the second dwarf had found himself overwhelmed by the felines while rushing to the aid of he ram, leaving her absolutely on her own. Captain Nicholas had been sniped before he even had a chance to react thanks to Persephone's stupidity. The half elf had deprived the others of support and transportation due to her cowardice. One of the dwarves had been slain by backstabbing scum while the last had met the same fate as the group's animal mounts. The few remaining bandits who hadn't escaped fought with greater desperation against the tigers but to no avail, achieving nothing except buying Tirith some time.

Medium blue hair wafted in what little wind reached the forest floor; part of the canopy was open above, letting in sunlight that interfered with her ultravision. A coolness that shouldn't have existed, that terrified her, washed over her exposed skin and tried to soothe her in vain.

Thirteen thousand years. Thirteen thousand years and it would all end like this? The munching of the tigers on her comrades, their mounts and their enemies filled her ears alongside the screams of a human trying to kick off several of the felines. Somehow, an old temple hymn worked its way into her mind, for the first time in her long life causing her to revile such chorus favorites. After her people's leader deemed it necessary to pick a side among the outlanders, Tirith's ancestral village had been desecrated by construction teams and immigrants from the Alliance. She'd been uprooted from the closest people she had to family, sent across the ocean and practically condemned to live out the last few decades or so of her life in some goddess forsaken rathole built from murdered trees. Every day she dealt with beings whose lifespans were a mere fraction of hers and who had no appreciation of all the knowledge and experience she had to offer the world. Her life had been taken from her already, even if she was still breathing; little else was left to live for.

Yet defiance boiled up as she decapitated a stray tiger who jumped at her. She couldn't quite explain it, or even describe it, but something pushed her on. Something inside her wouldn't accept biological death, even if she had been in the throes of an emotional one for six months.

One day soon, she would die. After ten thousand years of servitude to nature, she would be discarded. She felt it in her bones every single evening when she woke up. She was no longer needed; the purpose of the night elves had been fulfilled. No longer special, they were the same as all other people.

But she wasn't finished yet. More than anything she'd ever known, she knew that.

"Not here," she growled while ignoring the poison in her veins and the raw pain in her lungs. "Not yet."

Strategic retreats were nothing to be ashamed of in a highly trained martial society; all tactics served their purpose. Picking the path that held the least amount of tigers or bandits, she tossed her shield into a line or three of the felids eating one of the fallen orcs, garnering roars as she heard bones break. By stomping her feet, her boots and shin guards loosed enough for her to kick the air and send the metal pieces flying into more hostile targets. Her feet covered only by the thick leather socks that provided padding against her metal footwear, she gained that traditional elven speed her race had become so famous for. Helmet, pauldrons, bracers, greaves and breastplate followed as she shed every piece of armor save her right bracer, which her glaive was attached to.

Stripped down to her protective leathers and safe to flee after having injured many of the tigers by throwing her armor at them, she sprinted through. Pain seared into her right thigh like she hadn't experienced in a very long time, and one of the felines slashed her left arm before she cut the animal open during her escape, but still she ran. Some of them gave chase; some of them did not. But even as she felt irregularities in her heartbeat and constriction in her lungs, she ignored her weakened state and the roars behind her. Nimble elven feet carried her even faster than a tiger as she bolted, dodging low hanging branches and high jutting roots. Her trained and experienced mind anticipated where the more uneven ground would cause difficulty for the crouching felines, and she worked her way toward higher ground where she'd both force them to work harder for the sake of a single prey and negate their ability to pounce on her.

If there was ever a time to push herself behind her limit, this was it. And the whole time, something primal inside drove her to remain alive until she herself felt ready to go.


	5. March 10, year 24, A

_March 10, year 24_

Tirith shifted in the nest she'd built in the lower canopy. Suspended between three strong branches of two separate trees, she'd picked as many smaller branches as she could reach. The surprisingly warm nights in the jungle rendered the large leaves and her leathers sufficient as clothing; there was at least no risk of exposure up there in those trees.

The tigers milled about below, toying with a jungle deer they'd caught. Displaying a sinister intelligence beyond what she'd expected, they took turns pulling off parts as they dragged out the suffering of the ungulate as long as they could. Perhaps it was a warning to her, or a preview of what was to come; she wouldn't rule out the possibility entirely. Not after the animals had methodically picked apart everything in their path across the jungle.

For hours, they pushed her endurance to the limit as she beat a strategic retreat from the initial skirmish. When she finally sacrificed her weapon and bounced her moon glaive off of three at once, those who remained slowed down, having learned their lesson of trying to attack the wild elf when her adrenaline was pumping. Not surprising her from one aspect, the tigers had weak stamina for long distance running, and sufficed with merely keeping her in hearing and smelling range as she ran instead of trying to overtake her. Assuming they had the same jumping distance as the nightsabres she'd ridden for so long, she scanned the high jungle trees as she fled and stopped once she found a perching spot both high enough from the ground but also close enough to thinner trees nearby that could support her weight as she climbed and leapt through the canopy. Once atop, every muscle in her body ached, her wounds stung and the poison from a bandit's arrow nauseated her. But she was alive, she was at rest, and she could regroup.

The tigers wandered off occasionally, disappearing into the underbrush as presumably took breaks to hunt for food items they could actually catch. Even if she'd been in the condition to run again, she knew they wouldn't be far; they may have even been trying to lure her down for an easy kill. As in touch as she was with the balance of nature, there was no way she could tame five hungry tigers (the rest that had survived the skirmish never followed her) while weakened and from a tree, and at the same time. They were hungry, and they were willing to wait for prey as large as she was.

The poison remained in her veins; she had the experience to realize that. Though not powerful enough to kill her or cause her to fall seriously ill, it was enough to linger and suppress her immune system for the entire two days she'd been hiding in the tree. Keeping her grounded there, she cursed it and whateve rogue brewed it as the more likely indirect causes of death from starvation.

True to its nature as a rain forest, the canopy was drenched by a warm rain halfway through the first day up. Folding leaves into cups the way she'd done for so many years, she collected enough water for a week if she were conservative and didn't plan on running before she found the next source of water. There had been a hidden advantage; following the observations she once undertook of warring quilboar clans five thousand years before, she relieved herself directly onto the tigers, enraging but also disgusting the finicky felines and trying to drive home her point that she would be very difficult prey. Had they been wolves, they would have given up right there; that they returned after having appeared to cleaned themselves off in a stream almost caused her to gain a modicum of respect for their perseverance.

Food was a greater issue. After recovering from the initial nausea induced by the poison, she began testing the leaves nearby. At first, she only nibbled in the edges, sensing no danger when communing with the balance but still retaining her caution in such an unfamiliar environment. The nutritional value of leaves was low, as she'd once learned while testing it out in Darkshore. She'd need to consume a large amount to sustain herself, and that's assuming she'd be able to keep it all down. Two figs grew close enough to her nest to grab with a pole she fashioned from another branch, and much to the disappointment of the predators below she didn't fall. Water and two figs kept her alive for those two days; they could not cure her, however.

Her fever came and went. Were she one of the younglings of her people, she most likely would have recovered before then. Due to the now natural degeneration of her biological functions, however, her ancient body just couldn't shake off the sickness without the aid of a healer or herbalist. Pain still occasionally crept into the cut in her leg, creating difficult when she tried to sleep. Monotony was nothing new to her, but when she could find no reasonable means of escape due to the damning effects of the poison, Tirith began to lose hope. She was a survivor, but all had their limits.

Survivor. Survivors...survive. Pain subsided and fever dimished, she leaned back and covered her face from the midday sun with a large leaf. The tigers became lethargic due to it being in the heat of the day, lazing about and granting her ears respite from their habit of roaring often in an attempt to wear down her resolve.

Survive. Survivors...survive.

She closed her eyes from fatigue and opened them from comfort. Well rested, she rose up from the silk sheets and sat in the edge of the bed. All of her physical pain melted away, replaced only by the emotional pain in her heart as she had to face yet another day.

At only one thousand and seven hundred years old, she was simply too young for the life she'd carefully built to crumble. After all, she married for love rather than because her family arranged anything; that wasn't the norm. She should be happy, shouldn't she?

"Shouldn't you?" the senior Nightshade asked her.

Tirith stared at her bare feet in the tile floor of the family villa, feeling the soothing coolness of the surface. Outside the open balcony covered only by curtains and no window, she could hear the waves of the Well of Eternity crashing on the lakeshore. The Stars had already dotted the sky, and she'd been sleeping entirely too long. Her claims of feeling fine had obviusly been disproven by her own lethargy.

"I apologize, mother; I was not focusing on the question," she admitted shyly.

The elder Nightshade frowned in moderate disappointment before joining Tirith on the edge of the bed. A brilliant painting of the two of them holding hands decorated the wall directly across from them, suspended from the plaster surface not by nails but by an enchanted arcane adhesive spell, courtesy of the highborne their society revered and respected so much. The two of them looked so content, so happy with each other; so far away from their current state.

Disapproval emanated from the elder Nightshade's very being as Tirith felt herself being judged. "My daughter...we allowed you to choose whom you married; we went against the wishes of the entire family, all to please you. Nielthor was a wealthy man who sired my grandson, a child I know you cherish so much. If you would only consider-"

"You want me to beg at his doorstep?" Tirith asked out of turn, causing her mother to gasp at the interruption.

"Disgraceful."

Shutting her eyes tight, she did her best to fight off the stress. "I'm not a bad person, mother. I'm not a bad daughter and I am by no means a bad mother myself. I don't deserve to be looked down upon." Her protest came in an unusually strong manner for someone so put upon by the high society, such was her sense of victimization.

Unmoved, the elder Nightshade merely paused as she looked her daughter over. "Why could you not be happy with him? Why can't you just be content with what you have?" her mother asked. It wasn't a rhetorical question; she clearly didn't seem to understand why anything would be wrong.

Left alone, without anybody on her side save her son, Tirith found her willpower slowly worn down by her family and former in laws. And considering the fact that her son lived at the other end of the enormous metropolis known as Suramar, it was impractical for her to run to his townhouse every time she couldn't deal with her own parents. No, she had to be able to explain her choice by herself; it would be wrong for Tirith to impose on him just as it was wrong for her own mother to impose in her.

Opening her watery eyes to meet her mother's judgmental gaze, she found something. Something deep, buried in the depths, previously unknown. A drive, something that pushed her forward to where intuition led her, the entirety of all the worlds and all the people in them be damned. Even if she was fallen, even if she was ruined, even if she chose to return to the household of her parents when she'd already become a parent herself, that drive was there. And for the split second when she almost faltered and collapsed in on herself, that weak but still existent fire shot a spark even more painful than when the world and all the ones she'd previously trusted had pushed her down.

"I can't force myself to continue loving someone who changed so much, mother; and he can't force himself, either. Nobody knows what happened between he and I except he and I; I do not expect you or anyone else to understand, nor do I ask that of you." Scooting away from her mother's crushing, smothering embrace and standing alone before her, Tirith felt the defiance well up inside of her even when her prestige had been so torn and sullied. "If you do not wish me to remain here, I will go; if I am too much of an embarrassment for you, then cast me out, and you'll be free of this burden. Because if you see me as that, then it's all I will ever be; because I will not change."

Dismissive as if Tirith were still a child but surprised by the defiance from her doormat of a daughter, the elder Lady Nightshade stood up, lacking the usual forcefulness in her demeanor. "You would condemn yourself to ignominy rather than simply behave like a normal woman? You'd rather leave all that you know for the unknown, simply because you wish to exercise choices no other child of the stars would find reasonable?" her mother asked, a legitimate confusion in her voice.

Not missing a beat, Tirith spoke with a surety she'd never known. "Yes, mother dear; yes. That is what I would prefer. If the whole of society whispers about the dishonored one as I walk by, then it's a small price to pay knowing that I walk alone. It's what I choose by my own will, on my own terms," she retorted, the emotion breaking through in her voice for reasons beyond her own comprehension. "Because I am finished living for others; I am finished being a prisoner without shackles, of my own fear of being unsupported. I am finished being carried and ordered; I am finished resigning myself to having my future determined by others."

"Your reputation will be finished in high society!" her mother replied angrily, a look of utter shock on her face.

"Then I want no part of it! And I need nothing from it! Prisoners, every last one of them, willingly forming a line to receive their gold encrusted chains!" she replied just as angrily, stunning her mother into silence. "I will find a way, my own way, on my own terms! You don't have to believe me now, nobody has to respect my choice yet, but I will show them all! I will show them that they have no right to paint me the colors _they_ think make sense!

"No matter what, no matter how much they shut me out, I will not change my mind. I will not give up. And I will not go back. Because I'm a survivor, mother, no matter what anybody thinks. No matter how much is taken from me. No matter how much the world stacks against me. I am a survivor...and I will survive."

Survive.

Survive.

Survivor.

Survives.

Pain stung at her infected leg, causing her to flex it in reaction. More pain settled in and she flexed her other, feeling the dizziness from so much adrenaline unreleased. Blood pulsed and coursed up into her head, draining part of the fever away as her salty, stinging eyes focused despite the late afternoon sun piercing the canopy.

Driven beyond conscious thought by something deep, something primal, something original, she took the single spare branch she'd used to pluck the two figs from a neighboring tree and gripped the thinner end of it. Sharp, filed Kaldorei fangs sheared the outer layer of bark from the branch, filling her mouth with the musty flavor. None of the felines below took notice as their potential prey bit and chewed the tip of the branch into a point finer than any of their claws, spitting the wood filings onto her nest.

Hunger pushed her as it pushed them; the only difference was that the tigers had at least partially been sated by consuming varmints in the general vicinity. Gluttonous, lazy and asleep, none of them took notice as the night elf stalked out of her nest even more quietly than any of them were capable of, creeping down the sheer trunk of the tree using nothing but the strength and pressure generated by her now bare feet and the fingers of her free hand. Not a haze but rather a natural buzz hummed inside her head as she approached, ignoring her illness, exhaustion and age by sheer power of will and salivating at the thought of consuming tiger meat. Two days living from only two figs would drive anybody into desperation; it was a desperation that, in all her years of relying on her shield sisters for support, she hadn't felt. Not since being disgraced and tossed out of her family circle long before she'd even picked up a shield.

One of the tigers opened a single eye, half asleep as it looked up at the shadow sailing towards it. There wasn't even time for it to screech as the wooden spear entered the top of its skull and pierced down through the bottom of its lower jaw.

Light feet barely tapped on the ground despite the weight of a three hundred pound Amazon warrior crashing down, and it was only the rustling in the bushes of two more tigers and a very different, much larger animal that alerted the remaining four that had heretofore been in deep slumber. The two emerging from the bushes appeared frightened the moment they entered the clearing around the tree, as if they'd already had a reason to be afraid; the sight of the rabid night elf woman gave them even more pause, and the remaining four near the tree trunk scattered, hissed, jumped and regrouped as the spear was plucked out of their dead hunting mate and then stabbed furiously into the hindquarters of another.

Roars broke out as panic spread among them, and one of the formerly sleeping tigers actually clawed one of the two incoming ones as an unfocused frenzy overtook them. Weak, tired muscles fueled an aching body as Tirith limped after them, holding them all at bay and pushing a path toward the center of the clearing to avoid being cornered. Feral growls and barks emanated from both the felines and possibly from her as she stood her ground, unsatisfied by simply creating an escape route and attempting to use the last of her fading energy to make a point. Not a point to the felines, who would die anonymously as all of nature's creatures did, but to nature itself; a point that even for a night elf devoted to the balance, formerly blessed by Ysera and Nordrassil, a ten thousand year pawn of the planet, she would still not be controlled. Not by anyone; not by anything. If it was her time to die, it would only be due to the fact that she chose to drop down and fight rather than hide and starve-

"Ahhh!" the night elf cried out as she felt one of the smaller of the big cats swipe at her hamstring, knocking her to one knee just before she whacked it in the head with the blunt end of her spear hard enough to send it off three of its four feet.

A second one, similarly sleeker and smaller, leapt forward gracefully, its killing pounce only stopped by a last second dodge and a rake of Tirith's claw like fingernails across its ear, mangling the extremity and terrifying the tiger even more than had she simply stabbed it with her spear. Red blood and orange fur collected beneath the nails, and the presence of feline life fluid caused an immediate dampening in the frenzy that had previously been gathering steam; this elf would make their meal as difficult and permanently disfiguring for them as possible.

" **Come on!** " Tirith screamed in fury, holding them at bay as she spun around on shaking legs, nearly falling over from dizziness as she did so.

The largest male sprinted forward and swiped at her, attempting to knock her spear aside. The wooden shaft jarred against the palms of her hands and cut her, but she let the splinters pierce her flesh to whatever extent was necessary to retain her grip. The animal possessed a base sort of strategic behavior and didn't follow up when she held on to her weapon, and five of the tigers formed a rapidly shrinking circle around her. Growling, snarling, bleeding and frazzled from having been woken up so abruptly, the animals reached a standstill with the child of the stars. Though they were working together at least to keep her pinned up in the tree, they were not pack animals; none of them were willing to be the first to leap and end up impaled for the sake of their non existent pride.

"Yeeeeuuuuurrrggghh!" roared a deep, rumbling voice possessing a baritone that was almost comical. Any sort of laughter stopped when the sixth tiger that had previously been fleeing something else was tossed like it were a bag of leaves weighing nothing, crashing against a tree and nearly wrapping around the trunk from the impact.

Slow, heavy footsteps that were so far from stealthy that it almost seemed like a joke shook the ground, and a big blue mass clashing against the greenery of all the elephant ear plants in the underbrush ambled out with a wide, perfectly even gait. Sunlight, dizziness, hunger, blood loss, poison, humidity and fatigue all coalesced such that all Tirith could see was a mass of orange, black and blue as what appeared to be an upright ape walked directly toward the felines without any hesitation, fear or slowing of its pace. Some of the tigers scattered, one charged the blue thing and another pounced on Tirith.

Pain seared through her once more as the tiger's front claws hooked into her leathers and the skin of her shoulders, drawing blood but plugging the wounds. The animal's rear claws missed their target, and just barely caught the ground as she dropped. Pressing her spear longways against the animal's belly, she forced the mass of teeth and claws that weighed even more than she did to the ground, twisting north-south as she kept the tiger on its back and stomped on its throat and wind pipe until its roars turned into gasps and gurgles. The sound of a blunt object hitting meat rang deeply behind her, and she turned just in time to find three dead, mangled felines with broken backs as if they'd each been hit by a battering ram.

Unarmed but very dangerous, the big blue thing had a big orange and black thing on its back, gnawing on its thick, meaty neck and clinging for dear life with retractable claws. Not to be outdone, the blue thing reached up with a three fingered hand, grabbed the largest male tiger like a simple shawl and pulled it from its back. The tiger slashed and snapped to no avail as the blue thing grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and buttocks, reared back and gored the animal with two tusks. The roar was deafening as the tiger thrashed helplessly, no longer attacking as it tried to wiggle free. The blue thing's boar like tusks ripped a hole in the tiger's abdomen, and gore spilled out as the blue thing slapped the other side for good measure. Dead like the others, the stench of catgut filled the air when it joined its makeshift pride members in the stained ground, leaving only a blue thing and a purple thing alone in the clearing.

Gripping her spear one last time and feeling a comfortable numbness in her cuts, Tirith aimed her spear. Too much of her energy had been sapped for a strike at range, and so she wielded it like a pike, ready for a charge. First the tropical heat, then bandits, then tigers, then a long eared blue ape; all of them lined up for their turn to try, following up previous failed attempts by ostracizing highborne, controlling family members, rampaging demons, armies of corrupted guardians and legions of the younger races. Any sort of fear or apprehension she may have once held drained out as quickly as her life force, and she bared her fangs at the newest contender for whatever foolish creature thought it would be the one to finally end Tirith Nightshade.

Silver met red, and blue met blue. Something primal screamed as a weakened heart refused to give up.


	6. March 10, year 24, B

_March 10, year 24_

A breezeless day sat idle and still, every leaf of the canopy frozen in time. Birds, mammals and even insects had fled the blood stained clearing, every living thing scared away by the noise of a vicious, feral battle. Not a tree trunk creaked and not a leaf even fell to the forest floor as all of nature and the balance itself held still out of awe and respect. It was the least that could be expected by one of its former guardians, cast aside and robbed of never ending life when her people were deemed to no longer be necessary; a resentment and a desire to survive burned so brightly that not even the glassy, poison affected eyes would concede to shutting in exhaustion.

The mother of all staredowns played out in the middle of six mangled cat corpses, orange and black drenched in rust red forming a ring of competition as even the air seemed too afraid to move. Mist and humidity from the atmosphere paused in mid fall, watching as silver met red and blue met blue.

Her heart thumped in her chest even after her adrenaline had been spent, jolting her entire body by the system shock and afterburn of her rage. Blood dripped down the back of one leg where her hamstring had been damaged, and down the front of the other where the wound from the poisoned arrowhead had been reopened. A two day old cut in her arm festered hotly, but had at least remained closed. Her belly rumbled in desire to consume the flesh of the fallen felines, but her brain retained enough function to realize that another contender for the thirteen thousand year tournament of who would show her her end stood before her.

Vision focused as her next challenger waited, not yet moving to strike at her. Were she younger or better rested, or in better health, she would have been the first to charge already. Prevented from doing so by her condition, she resigned herself to bare her fangs again and hone her vision in on the tigerkiller before her, trying to size up her opponent. At least she'd have some sort of preparation before the next immediate episode in the series of her fighting for her life.

Blue varied into shades as the silent thing before her squatted down at ease, taunting her with its complete and total lack of fear. Stung into hissing once more, she held her ground as dark and light returned to her hazy mind. A light blue color not found among her own people covered what appeared to be sacks of beef draped over wide, heavy bones, like something a sculptor would create in hope of anatomy which didn't occur naturally. Matted, messy but mostly retaining its form, a mohawk crowning a thick skull burned in a more medium blue color found among her people and in her own family. Just like her hair. Aside from a wrapped loincloth dyed blue form some sort of plant, the thing was almost naked, the only contrast being the more profuse bleeding that stained the thing's hide.

Hide. Thick like an animal. A mane like a horse. Bipedal like an ape. But legs of the same proportion to the rest of the thing's body as hers. Arms proportional. Not an ape. Something else.

Deep breaths rang out as the dark red tears in the hide started to knit together. Rapidly enough for her to observe, the cuts began to close of their own accord, as if all the healing that would take normal people weeks occurred in moments. The blood stains remained, thick and gelatinous and more akin to jelly than to liquid. The thing continued to breathe as she watched it, two red eyes shining a bright intelligence despite the thing's jutting chin and heavy brow. Two very wide feet shifted in the bloodied grass as the thing sat down entirely, staring at her without an iota of aggression. Her fierce pride stung, she almost wished it would attack and acknowledge her prowess as a worthy opponent. Emotion fueled her thoughts as she found nerves too shot for her to easily regain control of her feelings.

Frozen and perplexed beyond action, Tirith waited for an inordinate amount of time before the big blue thing opened its toothy mouth and emitted a sound.

At first, she struggled to comprehend what was coming from its mouth; the poison had been granted two days to work her over, and she could hear the blood vessels in her long ears pumping in a way that should have frightened her.

Unable to coherently speak just yet, she mumbled something at the big blue thing in her own language, at least realizing that it wasn't some sort of mutated elf when it failed to understand. Wiggling its long ears, the red eyes conveyed a desire to understand that shouldn't have been present in the eyes of a predator. Driven by survival instinct, she rejected it as some sort of ploy and kept her spear aimed at the big blue thing's heart.

For the second time, the mouth opened around the two boar like tusks, this time reaching her ears with the baritone sound.

"You not supposed to be here."

Bearing surprisingly little accent, the sentence in Low Common took a moment to register in her mind. The tigerkiller continued to look her in the eyes without shyness, and to sit before her spear without apprehension. Considering how fast it had ended the life of the tigers, she surmised that it would have a better chance at being the one to end her than her previous opponents; it breathed easily while she heaved and huffed, every stinging pain in her lungs increasing her anger as she wished the big blue thing would drop the game and attack.

"I don't want to be here," she replied in the same language, not having even planned on speaking.

A twig snapped as a large toucan landed to watch the tense, plodding conversation continue, as if entertained by the lack of trust between the two that had previously shared a common enemy.

"Then why you come to land, and the land is not yours?" the thing asked again. There was a resentment there in the deep voice, but Tirith didn't feel as if it were directed toward her.

Unable to form a more cogent response, she felt her tired hands shake around the splintered shaft of her spear. She did not need to answer to anybody, especially somebody who was liable to threaten her. "I don't want to be here," she repeated, a little more forcefully the second time around.

The big blue thing inspected her in a manner which she found intrusive. Not intrusive in the way that human and high elf men tended to ogle every female that walked by; this thing was searching for something. Red eyes swept over her as she fought to catch her breath and to figure out what the big blue thing wanted. Reason returned to her quickly enough to decide that any action other than attacking her wouldn't make sense on the part of the thing, at least according to her experience. Therefore, the thing was either illogical, or had a motivation she did not understand.

As if it had read her thoughts, the thing moved to show non threatening display. "I not want to fight you," it told her, articulating its sentence in a way that no animal could.

Memory from what would be considered short term for an ancient being like Tirith sparked, bringing to her forelock the recollection of what she'd learned during the minuscule amount of time she'd spent in that part of the world. The heavy build. The large chin. The wide wrists and ankles. The sharp, pointy nose. The mane that bore the same color as her hair.

"You're from the Skullsplitter," she accused, trying to hold on to her spear in her shaking, bleeding hands despite the splinters.

Eyes almost hidden beneath the heavy brow blinked in the shadow created by his own face. "Yes," he replied dryly.

"Skullsplitter fight all people," she accused again. "Alliance, Horde, other tribes. All the world is your enemy."

A legitimate sense of offense spread across the otherwise stoic man's blue face. Her comment didn't sit well, that much she could tell. "I am not a tribe; I am a person," he protested. There was a politeness there which didn't make sense coming from one of his race, and she began to wonder if there was something wrong with him. Red eyes scanned her once more despite the indignant attitude, and she found herself and her weaknesses feeling rather exposed. "You are dying," he said ominously.

"No; not here," she protested herself, much more strongly than he had a moment ago.

"I not wish for you to die. I not say this to mock or gloat." The big blue jungle troll possessed a decent vocabulary despite his poor grammar, and an earnestness that didn't match his appearance. "But you are dying. You not want help, but you need it."

"You don't know anything about me or what I want," she shot back, unable to restrain her long buried emotions.

"You want help?"

"No."

"So you not want help, like I say you. But you need help. That," he told her while pointing toward her infected thigh, "will make you tired. Slow you down. And your camp is very far from here."

Pinpricks ran up and down her spine. "I don't live in a camp," she lied, feeling threatened despite the big blue man's passive demeanor.

For the first time, his brow furrowed in a sort of negativity. "You live at Camp Freedom. Camp for Alliance; land thieves, same as Horde. But you are person; not a faction. I go, you die alone. I stay, you get help. Maybe live; maybe not. But you have a chance." Returning to a squat rather than sitting, the man wore a look of mild concern in his eyes that he failed to hide. "You want help?" he asked.

The shaft of her spear suddenly felt very heavy in her stinging, bleeding hands. Realizing that he at least didn't intend to fight her, she let it fall to the ground and realized that she'd dropped into a full kneeling position. Gravity increased as the soft jungle ground tried to pull her town, whispering in small, pleasant voices that it would feel so comfortable against the side of her head.

"You're Skullsplitter," she repeated.

"I am not my tribe," he repeated as well.

Suspicion refused to be suppressed as she tried to make sense of the man's actions. "You have no reason to help me."

"You are a person; that is reason enough."

"Nobody from your tribe speaks that way; I heard the reputation. All people are hostile toward the Skullsplitter."

"When my tribe is here, I will not help you; when you come near the village of my tribe, I will kill you," he explained coldly and without any emotional attachment to the words. "But my tribe is not here; nobody can report me. One weekend a month, I am free. This is my time." Blinking beneath those heavy brows again, he paused as if giving her time to consider his words. "You want help?"

The casual, almost nonchalant manner in which he offered helped to lessen the sense of shame in her Kaldorei soul. Racial pride urged her not to accept, and to allow nature to run its course; but her survival instinct rejected even the balance itself if her fate were to be removed from her own hands. Her choice was slow death from fever and starvation, or choosing to accept help from a stranger.

Prevented from openly asking by her sense of dignity, she tried to be indirect. "I don't think you can help me," she lied, hoping to scratch his sense of pride.

Strangely, she found none. "I can try; maybe you will live. I say you, maybe."

Looking over her state, Tirith began to realize how bad her situation truly was. "My leg is poisoned; my other leg is cut. My arm is cut. I have a fever. I feel nauseous. I'm hungry. I'm tired. What can you do?" she asked, finding the mock debate a good distraction from her sense of hopelessness.

"Show you the way," he replied, immediately piquing her interest. "This is my land; not yours. I show you, and then you do without help; go back to your camp."

The proposition was almost appealing to her sense of pride and independence. Survive, learn how to recover; she'd be in the debt of a stranger. But she'd survive.

"I can't stay here," she said while sweeping her shaky arms over the tiger corpses. "Raptors will smell the blood, and they're much worse than tigers."

"They will not come when I am here," the big blue man protested. "And you can not travel."

"So what, then? What would you have me do?"

"Stay, and learn. I will show you. Fungus here; it will fight your infection," he claimed while sweeping his hand through the dirt in between shoots of grass. Likely a reference to some sort of underground fungi, Tirith assumed. "Leaves are up in the trees; chew, and they will clean your cuts, make you high and numb. Meat is all around," he said while lifting a tiger corpse as an example by grabbing a patch of fur and flicking his wrist up as if it weighed nothing. "Rain is coming; more water, less blood smell, less predators. But you need help for your infection, your cuts, your sleep."

For a second, Tirith looked back up at her nest. Although she'd climbed the tree two days ago, there was no possibly way for her to do so now; not in her condition. She'd have to sleep on the forest floor, leaving herself entirely vulnerable. When she met the big blue man's eyes again, she felt both relief and resentment, her dignity urging her not to depend on the stranger.

"I can't trust you. If I sleep, you can kill me."

"You are tired; I can kill you right now. You fight good; very strong. But nobody fights good when they are tired. Not fair. So...sleep or not sleep. Your tired does not change."

Her eyes narrowed, and although he didn't gloat or appear happy when uttering the sentence, she still felt uneasy. Uneasy because he was right; had he wanted to kill her, he could have already done so. That disadvantage, no matter how little it mattered due to his passivity, bothered her to no end.

"Get me the fungus," she demanded, too irritated to speak politely.

Wordlessly, the big blue man rose to a height much like the one horned ogre from the bandit raid, though without all the fat. A perfectly even gait led him into the underbrush and left Tirith in her own once again.

Able to breathe again and at least reassured that no other predators would creep up on her while the Skullsplitter man was foraging nearby, Tirith let her guard down for the first time in a long time. Plopping onto the grass, she tried to get her bearings in the dying light of the afternoon and the darkening clouds she could spy in the few breaks I the canopy above. Her stomach growled at the sight of the mangled tiger corpses, and she began to wonder how long they could sit for before the meat became spoiled. Grunting as she resigned herself to crawling for the sake of conserving energy, she crept back to the trunk of the tree where her nest had been. Her thick leather socks had been shed as she descended, and they were remarkably unblemished all things considered. Her legs were bleeding so she couldn't wear the long socks yet, but at least she could collect them in anticipation of when, hopefully, she would be alive, healthy and mobile once more.

Resorting to drastic measures, she dragged one of the corpses over toward the center of the bloody circle to rip it into whatever tools she needed. Gripping the lower jaw of one of the tigers, she ripped and tore until it popped off, granting her a toothed cutting knife composed of half a lower jawbone. From there, it was only a simple task of dragging the canines across pieces of fur she pinched up off the body, and she began to skin the first tiger using its own jaw.

The muscles in the palm of her hand burned alongside the poison she could feel tickling the insides of her veins. Sloth took over and by the time the big blue man had returned, she had barely been able to finish skinning the first of the six corpses. Bundled up in his arms was an assortment of different plant and fungal matter that she couldn't quite identify. Dropping it unceremoniously before her, she could tell that her seeming ally bore enough respect for her not to fret over or pamper her.

"Eat," he ordered in as brusque a tone as she had used when asking him to find what she needed.

Light reached her eyes from the forest floor and she realized that the fungus he'd dug up was glowing. It bore no odor at least, and as another pang of nausea hit her she felt desperation creep in. "Will this cure me?" Tirith asked as she inadvertently dropped the broken tiger jaw from her trembling hands.

"Yes. You will sleep, and when you wake up, the fever will should be gone," the man explained as he fiddled around with some of the other objects he'd gathered, though her vision had grown hazy again and she couldn't quite tell what he was doing. "That is why you need help; you will not can defend yourself while you have the deep sleep."

After his brief explanation, he began working with more vegetable matter in the center of the bloodied camp that was to be hers for the immediate future. Suspicion tried in vain to urge her to grab the spear again before she realized he'd pulled it away from her when she hadn't been paying attention. A precaution on his part, but her illness ate away at her distrust of an outlander. She was too far from home, in hostile territory and without a friend in the world; that was the truth. There was no room for suspicion - only acceptance or rejection of help.

Tirith began chewing on the fungus. Before she even finished, she could feel the soft grass against one side of her head as a big blue silhouette stood watch.


	7. March 11, year 24

_March 11, year 24_

For ten thousand years, the tree tower bore no name. In casual conversation, they generally didn't even need to refer to it; in a community of only twenty five, it wasn't necessary. When there was only one of something, names might become redundant.

Tirith rolled over in the grass, stretching her aching calf muscles and thoroughly enjoying her time off duty. In a way she never had during their seemingly endless wait before, she relished these moments when she didn't need to worry about the grove's security. Madrieda lounged next to her, the two dragoons engaging in a competition of who could lay the most at ease.

"Serdrassil," Madrieda murmured while half asleep. The starlight formed a ring as the clearing of their grove was punctuated by the tower, like the pupil of an eye.

Tirith's pupils tried to focus as she pulled her head up to get a better look at her shield sister. Incredulity struck her as she found no sly smirk on Madrieda's face. "Really?" she asked. "After the wait is over?"

Melancholy tainted Madrieda's features as she continued to fade in and out. "We need a tree of our own since we no longer have one to share for the whole world," she sighed.

"Don't joke like that!" Tirith cried. "Too soon!"

Memories of the Battle of Mount Hyjal remained an open wound in her memory. Madrieda in particular blamed the husband of the High Priestess for having sacrificed their immortality, regarding the loss of Nordrassil as an admission of defeat. The view split the villages in their region, and many tense discussions and instances of open insubordination occurred as the Sentinel contingents marched back to their posts per Whisperwind's instructions.

That rejection appeared to have been forgotten as Madrieda lazily gazed up at the stars, almost making light of their people's loss. "Do you think the tower will wither and die like us?" she asked in a calm voice that almost caused Tirith to worry about her mental state.

"Hush."

Fewen, one of the youngest in the grove and one who had been confined inside the safety of the natural yet impenetrable walls surrounding them, walked by their spot on her way toward the hollowed out tree that functioned as the village laundry station. Diligent and devoted, the thousand year old youngblood didn't even notice her two elders watching her.

"How much longer do you think those youngbloods have to live?" Madrieda asked almost rhetorically. "Probably a full lifespan, right?"

"Madrieda. Shush."

"We're going to age faster than the orcs and humans, you know. We already have a head start. I figure it's best to get through as much talking now; we hushed for long enough while on our patrols."

"Talking for the sake of talking? You sound like one of the outlanders now," Tirith halfway laughed, admitting defeat as her shield sister had finally poked through her shell.

The two of them grinned in a way they wouldn't have felt the urge or desire to do a mere year before. Time was meaningless back then; and as a now mortal Nightshade gazed at the stars, she began to wonder if their people's wait truly had been for ten millennia. It all felt the same; she could remember being in Suramar like yesterday. Time wasn't felt during that wait, but once it had ended, she realized how distorted it had been. She-

"The village priestess is in communion with the White Lady," sounded off the voice of the village's gatekeeper. "Please, our facilities are adequate. You should have no trouble waiting."

Tirith's ears pricked up; visitation by night elves from other groves was always a joyous occasion, and over the past year they had increased in frequency. The bizarre impatience of their visitor, however, was perplexing.

"I'm sorry, my sister...I'm so sorry," apologized an unfamiliar sentinel who sounded like she'd been running for days. "This can't wait; times have changed. I have to leave within the hour in order to inform all the villages in this province, and my hippogriff is too tired to continue; traveling by sabre will increase the amount of time-"

"Slow down," instructed the village gatekeeper, Celonia. "Just relax, sister. Everything can be sorted out here."

Her interest aroused, Tirith sat up to get a look at their nervous visitor. By the sound of the woman's voice, she was no youngblood, and indeed a younger sentinel wouldn't have been assigned to ride through an entire province as a messenger. Yet had there been some sort of crisis, the woman would have come out with it already; this behavior was strange.

Average for their kind, the messenger was smaller than Tirith and Madrieda, who were both rather large, hence their selection as heavy infantry. This woman was a typical messenger, light in order to encumber a mount as little as possible and wearing very little in the way of armor. Yet she appeared winded, as if she'd been running for a long time, all for news which wasn't important enough to shout from the town center. Unable to nap anymore, Tirith stood up and dusted her thighs off, having worn a rather simple outfit on her downtime. Madrieda remained on the patch of grass and appeared to have fallen asleep again. How ironic; in the past, they were all awake and alert even when off duty. Without the charge of defending nature from the Burning Legion at an unspecified time to keep them on their toes, they'd become lethargic. Perhaps they did deserve to lose their blessing of the Aspect of Time.

As Celonia blocked the messenger from entering the tree tower, Tirith shook the drowsiness from her head and approached their visitor, inspecting the shorter woman's gear. Something was obviously wrong. Her quiver had been emptied of its arrows, leaving her unarmed and being filled with multiple, identical copies of scrolls bearing the seal of the new capitol in the ocean. Next to the new seal of the Sentinels was a second one, a foreign one, as if the missives had been stamped by...outlanders?

The second seal was gold and blue, and bore the face of a large cat similar to a nightsabre, but with a wild mane. Confusion mounted as Tirith tried to understand what the meaning of the visitation was.

"Please, even if your priestess must be interrupted, this can't wait; things have changed," the messenger pleaded as Celonia held her at bay with a stern gaze only she could pull off. "The High Priestess accepted the terms of the humans; we play by their rules now."

Breath constricted in Tirith's throat when she realized that for the first time in ten thousand years, Celonia had left the living gate to their village open after allowing a visor through. Behind the ancient of war that guarded the entrance stood another mounted messenger, a Druid who had likely traveled in animal form, and...four humans. On horses. One of them bore the flag of the Alliance, one of the two factions the night elves had fought against in the lead up to their three way truce with that faction and the Horde for the greater good. Her heart froze in shocked anger when the human dismounted, raised the flag and planted it just within the boundary of their sacred grove.

"Wake up."

The disembodied voice startled her enough such that the memory paused along with her heart, trapping her for a brief moment. Lucidity returned when the deep voice rang in her ears a second time and she realized that she was dreaming, and realized that she realized it, and that she wanted to stop. She'd replayed the memory of the day her people picked a side too many times; there was no benefit to doing so now.

"I not understand your language. Wake up."

Salted eyes were greeted by bits of sunlight once more as Tirith awoke, more due to her own panic at the lucid dream than because of the request of the big blue man. The deep rumble of a large person's lungs pumped rhythmically, grounding her in reality and calming her down as she took a moment to stare at the canopy before shifting to see which injuries still hurt and which ones didn't.

"You were talk in your sleep. Not scared, but strange. I gave you too much of the fungus, maybe."

"Shush."

Her mind hazy, Tirith struggled to remember just who the stranger was and how she'd ended up there, and his talking as soon as she woke up wasn't helping. Short term memory served her well for once, and images of her comrades falling and her armor being shed brought her back to the present. She felt so silly, to be lying there in the ground unaware of how much time had passed, relying on the goodwill of a stranger in the jungle. Survival instinct had abated, being replaced by calculation and suspicion once more.

Rising to sit, Tirith gazed at the bloodied clearing and struggled to recognize her surroundings. Where there had once been dead tigers, there now were piles of sinew and bone tossed off to one side. The scent of meat lied on wrapped elephant ear leaves, and the lack of corpses informed her that the jungle troll who had fed her the fungus had finished skinning and preparing the meat.

The fungus. Her fever. Feeling her forehead, she was relieved to find that her temperature had returned to normal. The cuts on her legs and arm still stung, but those were mere flesh wounds; the curing of her illness was much more significant.

The big blue man sat nearby, working short but heavy branches of a tree into the ground. One makeshift shelter large enough for his frame had already been set up, the cover provided by a tanned tigerskin and large elephant ears. She surmised that the unfinished shelter might be for her.

"Thank you," she told him as objectively as she could, thankful but wary of a stranger from a hostile tribe.

Not even looking at her or displaying interest, he only nodded in acknowledgment as he stopped working. "This is for you; you can finish it," he replied. "More meat is wrapped; fire pit is ready. You want to eat, you work." The man appeared drowsy himself when he stopped working and sat beneath the crude tent he'd fashioned for himself from skins, branches and leaves; the time of day felt the same as when she'd passed out, yet her body had obviously rested.

"How long did I sleep for?"

Cross legged and still, the jungle troll thought for a moment. "Seventeen hours," he replied. "And I have not slept for more than a full day and night."

His implication was clear, and the awkwardness of their situation was not lost on her. "You did a great deal to help someone from a faction considered an enemy by your tribe."

"You are not your faction; I am not-"

"-your tribe. I know. But...why? This?"

He appeared to consider her question for a moment. "Why I helped you?"

"Why did you help me, when the rest of your people attack all outsiders on sight?"

As if frustrated by her question, the big blue man looked up and squinted at her. "Why other night elves are happy, and you are sad?" he asked.

Tirith's pulse jumped. The man did not know anything about her; it was either a lucky guess, or she'd talked more in her sleep than she'd realized. A defensive wall came up as she found a stranger trying to prove her thoughts; even if he'd helped her, she hadn't welcomed him to know whatever feelings she bore. "You don't know me," she retorted, folding her arms around herself as she tried to think of how she'd find her way back to civilization.

From her helper and interlocutor, she felt not an ounce of hostility, aggression or negativity at that point, but he seemed slightly annoyed, just as she was. He could choose to leave her to her own devices; that he didn't meant he must not necessarily be annoyed at her. He shifted to face her while sitting, and the angle finally allowed her to get a better look at him.

"I see many of your people at Nesingwary's camp," the jungle troll claimed. "They are happy; you are not. Maybe you see many Skullsplitter there; they treat foreigners like enemies. I do not. I choose who to help and who to fight, on my terms."

His words reverberated in her ears, speaking to her a little more clearly. "I...understand that, then. But I don't think...I don't think another Skullsplitter would help me."

"They would not."

"Then why do you choose to?"

Recognition flowed back to her when he ran a hand back to smooth his mohawk over the back of his head. She'd seen him many months ago, escorting two women of his tribe among the throngs of other travelers at the neutral camp of explorers in the jungle. They'd smiled at each other then, sharing a brief joke between strangers; they sat across from each other now, staring tensely as reserved allies against a common feline foe.

Finally, he answered. "My job among my people is to fight. Only this. Everyone has a job; there is no freedom, except once a month. And when I am free to choose, I not ever like to fight. I fought enough, before."

"You're a soldier?"

"What it means, soldier?"

"A person whose job is to fight."

The man looked sad for a moment. "Yes...I am this." Before she could speak again, he scooted forward and grabbed a fistful of light, pastel green leaves. "Your fever is gone, but your cuts are open; chew on these. Rub the mush in the cuts. You are not ready to go back to your camp yet."

"You don't need to do this," she mumbled humbly while accepting the leaves.

"I know that; when I want to leave, I can. But I choose to helped you. Finished." Tension remained in his shoulders as he returned to his crude tent and sat down again, staring into his lap with drowsy eyes.

"You want me to watch you while you sleep this time," she told him knowingly.

"Even if you not do this, I will help you."

"No, I understand. That you chose to help me, I mean. But I a,so understand that you're tired."

"Yes."

Passive and at rest, the tigerkiller didn't look the least bit threatening toward her. Had he wanted, he could have attacked her in her fatigue fueled sleep and held a great advantage. As crazy as it sounded, a member of a primitive tribe hostile to all other forms of life had chosen to help her on his weekend off. Though there was a measure of tension there, it greatly diminished.

"I will help you, too. But will raptors come?"

"Domestic, maybe; wake me up. Wild, no; not near smell of Skullsplitter. But..." The man's voice trailed off as sleepy eyes fixated on the wrapped tiger meat. "...not sleep now. I am hungry. When I sleep and I am hungry, I will wake. Not a good sleep."

"Is this meat still good?" Tirith asked while picking at the large elephant ear leaves.

"Good enough. You prepare; I make fire."

Having camped for so long, Tirith had prepared the meat early enough to start the fire herself, far outpacing the big blue man as all her experience on sentinel patrols served her well. As the man had claimed the day before, the chewed up leaves affected her motor skills once dabbed in her wounds, and she tried not to move around much. The two of them worked in silence to prepare food to eat, and on the few occasions when she stood to forage in the immediate area, she felt the lingering soreness in her muscles from all the running. As much as she wanted to leave, she knew she wasn't rested enough quite yet.

Her irritation at her partial dependence on help from a stranger abated when she finally had food in her stomach, however. The meat of carnivores wasn't particularly nutritious and the tubers the man had dug up tasted rather starchy, but it was nourishment. They ate slowly, and she tried to glean as much information as she could without imposing on him.

"How can I return to my camp from here?" she asked in between bites of their Spartan meal.

Grunting and eating slowly, the jungle troll appeared to be in no hurry despite his short lifespan, a welcome change from most other outlanders. "You are closer to Nesingwary's camp than to Camp Freedom," he replied. "I am going there; I need...things. Other people there can help you after that."

"And you'll need to return to your tribe after that."

"Yes."

"Thank you-"

"Shush."

In mid bite, Tirith paused to look at the man indignantly. Mimicking her own previous reaction when he'd roused her from her drug induced sleep, she'd told him the same thing. A faint, subtle grin curled over one of his tusks and she realized that the strange helper was being cheeky before he returned to his food.

The absurdity of their situation hit her hard. A soldier, officially a member of the Alliance, was stranded and doomed by a pack of hungry tigers. A soldier of the Skullsplitter happened to hear the skirmish and stopped to help. Many other members of her new faction wouldn't have sat in the wilderness, losing a day of sleep just to watch her heal. Tirith had tried to reach out to strangers as a means of coping with her new life situation, but she had not been raised in a society that taught all members to view outsiders as mortal enemies. The man before her was not normal for his people; then again, neither was she for hers.

Her curiosity go the better of her. "If other Skullsplitter see us, will you be in trouble?"

"Yes. Maybe execution. But...they are not here."

"You don't have to-"

"Shush," he told her again, seriously the second time. "I not like fighting. I work my work, but I not like it. Not want fight."

"Not fighting is different from helping."

"You are welcome," he told her, ending her inquisition of his motives for the time being. Whether he was being cheeky or not while doing so, she couldn't tell.

By the time they'd finished eating, he almost looked like he was about to pass out. For all the remarkable healing of his physical scars from the skirmish, his body still suffered from sleep deprivation as a person of any race would. Sluggish limbs carried him back over to his tent silently, and he made no attempts to help her set up her own tent or clean up the camp. The lack of fuss or coddling despite her injury was welcome. Had she been stuck with a human or even a male of her own kind, she likely would have been irritated to no end by attempts to treat her like a lost invalid in need of assistance; that he seemed to leave her to care for herself as much as possible made nursing her wounded pride a bit easier.

Before he could drift off, she searched for some semblance of a plan the best she could. "When you wake up, will you show me the way to Nesingwary's camp?"

"Yes," he mumbled while lying down. "But you must help me. Very tired."

"I choose to," she joked, though he didn't laugh and didn't seem to understand she was trying to be funny. When his eyelids began to droop, she at least tried to find out who he was. "I'm Tirith Nightshade," she told him, giving him a small verbal jolt to keep him awake.

"Oacaxo, of Skullsplitter," he replied while pointing to himself.

"Washaho?"

"Oacaxo."

"Wakaho?"

"Oacaxo."

"Wachaho?"

"Good enough."

"Thank you for helping me...Wachaho. I am sorry that my faction fights against your tribe."

Snorting his agreement, he fought to answer despite obviously being exhausted. "Not all of us are born in the right time or place," he replied ominously. And as out of place as his statement seemed, it made more sense to her than anything she'd heard in a long time.

"I know that feeling...very well," she replied just as he fell asleep.

The rest of the day was spent tending to her wounds and fashioning whatever weapons she could at the camp lest they be discovered. Tirith spent a long time lying on the grass and staring up at the stars when night fell, wondering how much longer she'd be able to relax before the next challenger came along to try and end her. Until then, at least she had a place to recover. For the whole time while her new ally slept, she busied herself around the camp, building her tent and clearing the area. And for the first time since she'd reached that continent, the monotony didn't bother her.


	8. March 12, year 24

_March 12, year 24_

Drowsiness pricked at Tirith's eyes as she fought to stay awake in the clearing. For the longest time she preoccupied herself in the bloodied clearing that was her shared campsite with the stranger, performing the usual chores she'd grown used to when out on patrols with her shield sisters. There was only so much she could do, however, during the long hours in which her unlikely comrade slumbered.

As the hours ticked by, she found herself forcibly questioning what she was doing, as well as what he was doing. She didn't know the man aside from a humorous gesture shared at an unfamiliar settlement months before; he had no reason to help her, nor did she have any reason to trust him. And yet he did help, she did trust, and vice versa. After helping her slay the wild predators that may very well have ended her life, he could have pushed her into fighting for survival once more. Given her nearly rabid state at the time, she couldn't have faulted him for assuming it the safer, more logical choice for his own wellbeing. Even some members of her own race might not have intervened, and Tirith knew full well that not all of them were trustworthy enough to share a camp with.

By all measures, she shouldn't have dropped her spear. She shouldn't have responded when he spoke to her. She shouldn't have believed his claim that he'd help her for the sake of helping, and she sure as hell shouldn't have eaten a glowing piece of fungus that he warned her in advance would cause her to pass out and become completely dependent on him.

Was it desperation pushing her to make choices under duress? Was it intuition for seeing that the big blue man was genuine?

Both questions were forced. Inside, a feeling she couldn't explain refused to entertain them; in spite of all facts and reason, her heart bore no suspicion toward the warrior from a tribe so savage that not even the Horde would accept them.

When he'd finally woken her up, her Kaldorei awareness led her to run a safety check. During her sleep, he could have done other things not so horrible as killing her, yet her tracking skills told her that he hadn't even approached her resting body during the half day or so that she'd been unconscious. All the tigers had been skinned, food prepared and the camp secured. Aside from the crudeness of the shelter and the food preparation, it wasn't any different from patrolling the forests of Kalimdor with her fellow night elves. While she didn't question it naturally, it did confuse her.

He had claimed that his tribe might execute him for fraternizing with outsiders...he did not appear to be exaggerating. His were obviously a vicious, xenophobic people. Even if he was an individual and not a tribe...it was just so strange.

The cuts in her legs and arm began to sting again, though not like before. The pain held her attention briefly, and she refused to resort to the lightly narcotic leaves he'd shown her for fear that the relaxation they brought would cause her to sleep. Whatever Oacaxo's intentions were, she was not in a position to renege on her deal to watch him as they slept in shifts. At the minimum, she was honor bound to at least return the favor before parting ways; beyond that, she was technically lost, still injured and possessed only a pointy stick as a weapon in unfamiliar territory. She had to remain awake. She...

...fell asleep. Mild panic overtook her as her eyes shot open. Night had fallen, and under normal circumstances she would have been more alert. Her sleep schedule had been ruined over the past four days, but giving in would endanger her and the person she still owed a debt to. Weighing her options, she crawled on aching legs over toward his makeshift tent and tried to rouse him from his sleep.

"Wachaho," she whispered at first, garnering only a mild twitch of all the muscle mass beneath the blue hide. When he didn't stir, she swallowed her guilt and spoke a little louder. "Wachaho," she said out loud, surprising herself by the volume and by how still and calm the area around the clearing was.

"Hmm...I am awake," he hummed, displaying nine of the infantile reluctance to rise from sleep that she'd grown used to in other outlanders. Blinking his drowsy eyes, he looked up to see the night sky before looking up at her without rising. "How much time was my sleep?"

"Ten and a half hours; I counted," she replied. "I am very sorry...but I am not well yet. I am thirsty, my limbs are still injured, and my body still isn't fully rested. I only woke you because I feared falling asleep."

Though he didn't look upset, he didn't rush to reassure her that everything would be find; his reaction was very mild and understated. "That is not a surprise; you looked very tired yesterday. Your fever was bad, and you talked in your sleep. You are not ready to walk all the way to the camp of Nesingwary."

There was no resentment in his voice, but her Kaldorei pride stung at how quickly he'd read her condition, pushing her to save face. "You were not required to help, and you have my eternal thanks. If you leave to the camp to tend to your business, then it's your right."

"No. I say...said you, I will help. So I will help." He sat up and rubbed his face, exhaling into the palm of his hand. "I also need water. There is a stream; we can not stay there. Crockolisks are even worse than raptors. This place is marked by blood; it is much better."

"You are not obligated to help me find water-"

"Stop. Your way is annoying," he told her bluntly and without sarcasm. "I want to help; even if I am tired. Not for you to tell me what I should or should not do."

"I apologize; but I don't want to be pompous." When he glanced at her in confusion, she realized he didn't understand the word. "Arrogant," she told him, and he nodded. "Why are you helping me?"

At that, he did almost smile as if he found her words amusing. "Your question is sad. People should help people."

"The world is a sad place," she mumbled, still not understanding his motivation.

After a moment of silence, he rose. "Your cuts are not healed; use more leaves. I will bring water. Then you sleep; you need rest before we can leave."

"Thank you, Wachaho," she told him as he left, too shy to ask how he'd transport the water.

"Oacaxo," he corrected her over his shoulder.

Alone again, she realized she was no closer to understanding her potentially dangerous companion than she'd been before waking him up. At least she knew he was willing to delay his trip to Nesingwary's until she was healthier, and a part of her felt comfortable believing he was sincere. Since traveling the world, she'd met people of different races; closing her eyes and attempting to relax, she tried telling herself to view him as an individual and not his tribe.

By the time she heard his plodding footsteps returning, she'd already filled her cuts with the unpleasant mush from her own mouth again and had reclined into the crude tent she'd built across from his. Drowsiness occasionally came back to her, though the sound of sloshing water woke her up right away.

Squatting in the space between the two low hanging tents, he set down what appeared to be several hollow, hardened gourds, nearly translucent and revealing the liquid inside. He must have drank his fill, as he pushed one toward her and the others off to the side after seating himself. "Thanks," was all she managed to tell him before sipping on the natural water container, marveling at the similarity to some of the hollow gourds that grew at her ancestral grove. Bit by bit, she drank as slowly as possible so as to avoid any sort of dizziness after having been parched for so long. Oacaxo sat patiently and waited for her to finish before speaking.

"You should sleep now; we can sleep in shifts until the morning. Then we find food."

"I would like to find my armor," she replied. Now that her base needs had been sated, the issue of her lost gear popped into her head. "I threw my armor at the tigers when I retreated; I need it back."

"After sleep," he told her politely, "we can go find it. But if I help you with that, then I will keep the tiger skins. I need them."

"Deal." They sat in silence a little while longer; he was by far the quietest outlander she'd lived in close quarters with. Though never chatty herself, curiosity held her awake a little while longer as she felt herself drift. "Why don't you have a thick accent when you speak Common?"

His brow furrowed in confusion. "People not have accents in their own language," he replied, looking at her as if she were simple.

"Own...?" she asked in confusion. "Your people speak Zandali."

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"How?"

For a second, he just pursed his lips and she wondered if she'd said something wrong. When he spoke, however, there was a source of resentment that she somehow knew wasn't directed at her. "Big tribes speak Zandali; tribes that have cities. Cities have stone. Stone means writing. Amani, Gurubashi, Drakkari, Farraki. Small tribes speak Common, because we trade with foreigners. We kill them, but we also trade with them."

"So you speak a language of your enemies?"

Sighing through his nose, he nodded slowly. "The colonized truly lose when they identify with the colonizer."

Drooping eyelids couldn't prevent the odd tingle up her spine. "Unfortunately...I know exactly what you mean," she murmured as she felt herself drift off.

Unlike the fungus induced visions, Tirith's dreams from natural sleep were mundane. Trees both real and imagined surrounded an odd game of ball played with her shield sisters and the two stalwart dwarves that had fallen to the bandits. Revisiting her in her dreams as so many fallen comrades had done before, they talked more than they ever had in life, smiling and flashing perfect sets of small, peg like teeth as they shared in a game with friends of hers they'd never met between trees that never existed. Every tree in her region of Ashenvale had been named by the residents of her village; they monitored growth yearly and have even named every indentation in the soil from natural erosion. Love of nature and a complete focus on it was spoiled by technology and luxury, and even in her own dream she found herself forgetting the names of some of the beloved trees she'd spent millennia surveying. Images faded to black as a deep, dreamless sleep overtook her, leaving her almost fully healed by the time she woke up.

The caw of a tropical bird pulled her out slowly, and the light of the sun beating against her low hanging tent at least made her feel at home, even if she was so far away. Her connection to the balance told her that there were no predators around, and the presence of her new comrade a few yards behind her was a reassuring one.

Not wanting to appear exploitative of his help, she forced herself to sit up. "I'm awake," she announced as she stirred, peering around to find him ripping the skin from a rather heavy looking fruit.

"I not need to sleep," he said while using his tusks to open the particularly thick, spiky peel. "Now is a good time to finding your armor."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I am not tired; there is not reason to wait." Picking up the tiger skins, he strapped them to his back with wrapped vines along with some of the water carrying gourds and a wooden spear of his own. It only took Tirith a moment to follow his lead and retrieve her own, leaving the bones and branches at their campsite to be reclaimed by nature. "You must lead; I not saw where you came from," he said while waiting for her to begin walking.

"I ran for more than an hour in between throwing my weapon and my armor; this will take time," she warned.

Grunting but saying nothing, he followed as she retraced her desperate footsteps from four and a half days prior. Even in the light of day, the forest floor was sufficiently dark and her eyes served her well. They were at a high enough elevation that her ears popped as they descended, walking carefully over uneven terrain she'd had an easier time traversing when at full sprint. Without hostiles on her trail, she and her companion were able to take their time, inspecting the path carefully.

As one would expect, they had little else to do to pass the time than to talk; even for two quiet individuals, she found their conversation an engaging distraction from the humidity, the terrain and the lingering worry over the sort of welcome she'd receive at Camp Freedom.

"Wachaho...you mentioned yesterday that your people kill foreigners, but you dislike fighting. Why are the others fighting?"

"Land and pride. So much fighting for land and pride," he offered immediately and almost eagerly. "We fight Bloodscalp for ruined towns, because a ruined town is easier than building a new town. We fight Gurubashi to avoid women and children being steal adopted."

"Adopted by force?"

"By force. We fight Alliance and Horde because they are new, and also want land; land that jungle trolls already fight for, before they came. Only Steamwheedle, Venture and mister Nesingwary not fight us."

"But you don't want to fight; why can't you tell them?"

"No...no, no. We are not Darkspear; we not let any stupid people talk public. We have a system, from the long, long ago. Berserker defends; headhunter attacks; doctor cures; priest leads; others labor. Everybody has a job. The system not work if not everybody follows."

"You are a berserker...so you can't talk in public?"

"Yes; why will I talk? I can not control the system. The system is outside me."

Humming as they began descending an even steeper slope, she felt a different cut from the ones on her limbs. "I know that feeling...all too well. I lost my home to..." Her voice trailed off as she realized she was rambling about her personal troubles. She shook her head as she walked, wondering what had gotten into her to cause her to drop her guard so easily, but she'd already opened the door.

"I not lose my home," he tried to correct her, misunderstanding what she'd meant.

"No, I meant, tee oh...not tee oh oh."

"What you lost your home to?"

"It's nothing, but...you know." For a second she reconsidered opening up to him; it was not an aspect of her personality, not in a thousand years. But the way he leaned closer as they walked signaled that he expected an answer; considering how easily he spoke of his own background when asked, it almost felt rude not to reciprocate. "My people were not a part of the Alliance; we fought them, and the Horde as well. We were independent, but our leaders picked a side."

"For land?"

"Well, for safety...for allies. I don't know. But big cities benefitted from the Alliance; we have a capitol, Darnassus, and it became a great city because of trade and influence. Medium cities, like one called Astranaar, also did very well. But I am from a village; villages could not resist the social change. We became a minority in our own home; new rules were out on us and land we'd hunted on for..." She paused before mentioning periods of time; Oacaxo appeared more intelligent than the rest of his kind, but he was still a product of his culture. How could he comprehend the fact that she'd been mortal, then immortal, then mortal again? "...we used to hunt on our own land, but people from the outside almost wiped our the animals. None of us wanted to be a part of them, but the choice was not ours to make. The...system is outside of us."

"I am very sorry for what you lost. Sounds like Skullsplitter...I am not sad now, but I remember the sad from this."

"How is it similar?"

"We have big city, Zul'mamwe. Works with Venture Company sometimes, Gurubashi other times; deals with other people. But my village is Xlatl-"

"What?"

"Xlatl." Tirith tried to imagine how she'd pronounce the name of his village before simply giving up and allowing him to continue. "Xlatl is small; poor defenses. When the tribe chief in Zul'mamwe declares war, his city is protected deep in the forest; Xlatl is on the borders; we suffer consequences they not suffer. But these choices are made before we even hear about them."

As they continued to search the almost comically thick underbrush, she tried to look back at him, her usual propriety and reserved nature receding too slowly for her to notice. He had an aura of mild disappointment about him when retelling similar misgivings to her, yet he entirely lacked her bitterness. "Your situation has...some similarities to mine, but you aren't angry or sad."

"Never. Not now. Not anymore. Nothing will make me sad; not when I find real control."

He spoke with such a surety that she almost felt a tinge of jealousy for the ease at which he talked about the lack of control over his own village's fate. Perhaps it was because he was a simpler being; or perhaps she did just make her life too complicated, as he'd accused her of previously.

"So how, then, did you find real control in a sad world where leaders decide our future for us?" she asked while slowing down to catch her breath in the dense jungle air.

Before he could reply, the two of them stopped dead in their tracks. Four long ears rotated in the moist air as heads remained still and eyes scanned the surroundings. For too long, they'd been scouring the area where Tirith remembered finally dumping her glaive and right bracer previously; its absence, coupled with the very faint rustle of leaves, was enough of a sign that something was wrong.

Following her lead to the tee, Oacaxo gripped his spear but didn't aim it or shift his weight. Tirith listened again, waiting for whoever was watching them to grow impatient. They were being watched by...two people. Not animals; she would have sensed their presence even more strongly were that the case.

A waiting game played itself out as she let her throwing wrist lay limp. As long as Oacaxo didn't grow impatient, she'd have no problem detecting whoever it was that thought of themselves as some master of stealth. Breathing alone helped her to move her glowing eyes in the right direction, her pupils and thus the direction of her gaze difficult for others to discern in broad daylight. Direction was followed by distance as she remembered the mass of her spear when stabbing a tiger with it previously, and the angle at which she'd need to throw wasn't too difficult thereafter-

"Argh!" cried out the human as a sharp point he probably hadn't even been able to see hit him in the leg.

In a flash, Tirith had acted when she heard an exceptionally harsh exhalation, launching her spear in the right direction and hitting the hidden bandit despite the soft cover of the underbrush. The spear bounced off of a target unseen and failed to penetrate deeply, but it was obvious that some damage had been done given the odor of blood that reached her nostrils almost immediately.

Saving his spear, Oacaxo watched the human flee with keen eyes, a second joining him as moon blessed metal clanked on the ground. Tirith bolted over to where the sound had come from, finding the prize behind the bushes, much as had been expected. Attaching her glaive bracer in record time, she began to pursue the humans instinctively, knowing that the scavengers might have more of her armor.

As her similarly fit but slower companion tried to keep up with her, she glanced over her shoulder. "They might have the rest of my gear!" she shouted across the wind.

"We will find out now."

Hanging back cautiously, Tirith followed both the sound of running and the trail of blood, weaving in an out of the trees and sliding part of the way down the jungle slope. Nesingwary's camp might end up having to wait, she grumbled to herself internally.


	9. March 13, year 24

_March 13, year 24_

Hours and hours and lots of chasing later, Tirith grumbled internally, and finally she collected her armor. Not only had the bodies of her fallen allies been stolen, but so had all the armor she'd thrown at her former pursuers. The scavengers posing as the Syndicate returned to the skirmish site, gathered every last piece and screw and tried to make off with it. Only after a great deal of tracking on the part of Tirith and her new comrade, and cussing just on her part, were they able to apprehend the bandits they'd initially encountered when they began their search. And with every piece they dropped as they fled, she found herself slowed down just a little more as she found no way to carry it in pursuit other than wearing it.

Even as dusk approached, the heat in the jungle was intense. For the first time in as long as she could remember, Tirith felt a bead of sweat drip down her forehead, leaving a tickling trail from her scalp to her long eyebrow. Wearing heavy armor while chasing the remaining bandits became quite the laborious task in the tropical humidity.

"This is the last one," she huffed as she pulled her recovered moon glaive from the ragged bandit's back. "I'm sure of it; only the ogre seems to have escaped, and I'm not sure how long he'd fare for."

Unarmored but healed all the same, her large companion inspected the body of another bandit corpse lain a few yards away on the forest floor. "You are sure the humans will be pleased, when you kill humans?" Oacaxo asked as he inspected the rucksack of the body before him.

"Not all humans are alike. Their society also has its outlaws." Ignoring the various scraps of paper and stolen treasure maps in the bandit's pockets, Tirith continued searching until she heard the clink of metal. "My buckle! Here it is...ah. These are outlaws."

"I know that word."

"So they will not be missed. Not all humans are allies."

The spear he'd fashioned for himself was not quite as crude as the one she'd made for herself before; then again, he had more time to work on it after waking up from his turn sleeping. Pulling it from the other bandit, he spoke in a cynical tone. "I know this...very well," he sighed. "People fight their own people in every place. See the one like the group."

"That won't be the case here; we're doing a good deed by all in this area by clearing these people out," she said while staring resentfully at the corpse. "Plus, too much has been stolen on these small roads. I see a lot of goods that probably didn't belong to these people - and not just pieces of my armor. And this gold needs to be turned in to the neutral camp - survivors of these attacks have a right to it," she explained while collecting all the stolen money from the two dead bodies.

"Are the survivors at the camp of Nesingwary?"

"I don't know where they are...but that's the biggest meeting place in this region. There's a better chance for missing people and items to be found there than anywhere else."

Her unlikely ally snorted in affirmation, and the two of them finished searching the bodies.

The last piece of her body armor found, Tirith looked around for a place to sit. Having repaired armor in the field numerous times before, it wouldn't take her long. Aside from the initial job of tracking the surviving bandits after they'd returned to the skirmish site and stolen her discarded gear, the rest of the task was rather easy.

Sitting on a fallen log, she set to work on repairing her left bracer, working the loose screw back into the buckle. Patient as always, Oacaxo busied himself by digging up more roots and tubers that were edible raw. The regeneration of his people, apparently, came at the expense of a fast metabolism, and he devoted more time in his day to eating than any other person she'd ever met. The two of them sat near each other but focused on their own tasks, functioning in a rather comfortable arrangement despite not really knowing each other.

"I'm sorry that it took this long to recover the rest of my gear," she murmured while fighting the washer that just wouldn't stop spinning around whenever she touched it. Slight embarrassment tinted her words; after he'd awoken the day before, they'd initially planned to return to the neutral camp in the same night.

Every bit as terse but gracious as she was, he just shook his head and continued carrying out his task. "Stop. I offer to help you; I can take away the offer. I choose to help."

"You still won't tell me why."

"I tell you why; but you not believe."

Sucking in air in anticipation as the screw finally settled into place, she held her breath until the last piece of her bloody, dirty armor was finally secured. "I believe that you choose to; I don't understand why. I am thankful, but I don't understand."

"You make life complicated. You are a person; not an animal. When I choose, I choose to help people."

Her armor secured, she continued sitting in the log for a moment. Conflict welled up inside her at his repeated explanation. Tirith read people well, and every part of her intuition believed what he was saying, even when the logical side of her brain did not. The fact that there was no voice in the back of her head whispering that he bore ill intentions confused her; that voice made its presence known even when dealing with other residents of Camp Freedom. Oacaxo's behavior didn't make logical sense, no matter how comfortable she felt with it.

No longer in need of any further searching before they returned to the neutral camp, she relaxed in her sitting spot and watched him for a moment. For sure he knew; both of them were rather alert about the gaze of the other, likely a lingering suspicion that would remain for a while. At ease, though, she felt a surprising calm both from him and herself that she never felt around anybody save her former shield sisters, or Khadijah, or William.

So little had been said after he'd woken up. He never avoided her gaze or flinched when she moved around him, and in turn neither did she; a sort of instinctual trust existed beyond what she could explain in words after their initial staredown among the dead tigers. She asked for help when he offered; he asked to sleep after she awoke; she asked for help retrieving her armor across ten square miles of jungle; he asked to keep the tiger skins they'd tanned. Though they were only helping each other temporarily, it was a surprisingly functional alliance.

Accepting some of the dark green tubers he offered her, she found herself able to relax in the rapidly dying heat. "I wish the world were so simple," she murmured.

"Me too."

The two of them ate the raw vegetables until neither of them could eat any more, finding themselves unburdened of their tasks but unmotivated to leave. Tirith had her armor, after a day of going around in circles; Oacaxo had enough tiger skins to buy the simple iron household items that his people didn't understand how to make by themselves. Nothing prevented them from returning to their respective peoples, yet she could vaguely sense that he was as reluctant to do so as she.

"We have all that we need," she conceded, breaking the silence. "Your village must be wondering where you are by now."

"I think they will tell me to clean the raptor pens, because I am late," he chuckled with an air of good natured nostalgia as if he didn't mind.

"I fear I may be partially blamed for the delay as well. So...we should go."

Red met silver again, and the feeling of being exposed in front of a stranger - however agreeable he was - struck her again.

"You are hesitant," he stated rather directly.

"It's nothing."

"But why?"

Though she felt it rude to look away, she knew he'd see right through her attempt to brush his comment off. Were it anybody else, she would have reacted very negatively at the way he looked at her, like he saw right through her shell. Their interactions were so unpretentious that she found herself unable to shut him out.

"Well...I feel..." She inhaled deeply, feeling silly for her apprehension. "It's really nothing...I just don't enjoy the place."

"A bad place, not the cause of such hesitation."

"I know...I just have trouble explaining it. I don't even know why I'm saying this. But I feel like I'm wasting my time there. The place is fine enough."

"But you, not belong there."

A strange tingle hit her between the eyes, just where the bridge of her nose met her brow. It startled her at first, and then felt relaxing when she stopped tensing the muscles in her shoulders. "That's...yes. That's exactly it. There isn't anything...wrong. But it isn't my place." She realized that she'd somehow ended up staring at her boots, and looked up to find a serious but sympathetic expression directed toward her.

"The people are not bad...but not your friends," he almost asked rather than said. "Correct or mistake?"

"Correct."

"And you not know why you wake up, every day. Correct?"

She opened her mouth to answer and swiftly shut it, feeling that the sense of exposure was too fast, too strong. For a second she wondered if he were making fun of her, but the look in his eyes almost made it seem like he was speaking for them both. It was a similarly exposed look despite the fact that he hadn't been forced to do so, like someone who willingly opened a wound. It felt both embarrassing yet comforting at the same time as two strangers bled.

"I lost my purpose," she said, unable to hold back words she hadn't even realized we're there. "I don't have a reason to guide me through life anymore. My home...my village, is gone. Changed. Foreigners moved in, and they outnumber the original people. They don't know us, not even the others of my race. And now, I live here because I am a soldier; I have no choice in where I am sent. And so...I...I don't really know what I'm saying right now."

"You are saying about your life. And what you say, clear. You lost your own place; you are in the wrong place. Your job, other people choose what you do."

"Exactly. That's...exactly."

"But, Tirith Nightshade...why is life not the purpose of life?"

She cocked her head to the side. "I don't understand what that means," she admitted.

"Life should not be complicated; it is the purpose. To wake up and be happy. To be free even if other people make you a prisoner."

She shook her head at him in disbelief. "It's not that easy."

He scooted forward slightly, but remained seated lower than her. "I say you...I am also a soldier. I can not choose where I live, or how I live. I can not read; my village says me that is not my right. I can not draw; my village says me that art is not for berserkers. I save parrot, before; priestess of tribe says me to kill it, so I remember that a berserker can not have pets. I get some day of relax every month, but the village chooses the day for me; I can not even leave when I want. I only talk to other people who fight, only for one hour before night, because a fighting person not need to talk, they say me. They keep me in prison, because of my caste."

"If you know how that feels, then what is the purpose...Wachaho?" she asked, hesitating only for a second before saying his name. "How can there be a reason for...life?" Cursing herself for speaking so openly, she almost retracted behind a wall after the admission, feeling a sense of defeat that she'd buried for a long time.

"Life is the purpose; I say you. The prison...the control. It is outside. And the outside can be taken away. But not the inside." He pointed to his heart in a way that should have looked cliche, but didn't. Maybe her emotions were acting up again; maybe he was simply more articulate than she'd previously thought; or maybe it somehow made sense. "They can not take this, not even by execution."

"I'm empty on-" She stopped herself at the last minute, self consciousness pouring in and immersing her in doubt. A sentinel was supposed to be stalwart, vigilant; not crestfallen and dejected.

Had he tried to finish her sentence, it would have been too patronizing, and for a second he almost looked like he was about to do so. At the last second he relented and looked down, allowing her to shelter her ego bruises momentarily. "Stand up," he asked, rising to his feet. It was the most direct request he'd made of her, which she usually didn't enjoy hearing from anyone. Though he stood higher than her, he bent his head low, absent of any sort of haughtiness. Skepticism told her to ignore what he wanted, to just shut up, keep her despair to herself and change the subject. "Stand up," he repeated, using about as soft a voice as someone with a neck that thick could muster. "Please."

Tirith's temples heated up as if she were a child on the stage, timid and worried about how others would react to her. It felt so stupid, to be a being so experienced, so weathered, possessing a mind beyond what Oacaxo had ever witnessed and yet feel shy in front of him. Even when she forced herself to brace the log and stand up, she had difficulty shaking the feeling that she looked ridiculous, just standing with her hands aplomb. When he turned away from her and walked to a different part of their clearing, his gaze was no longer focused on her and the discomfort lessened. In the middle of a green forest, a light blue pillar wearing orange and black furs stood, though the dullness of the colors became apparent to her and made the scene less vibrant; at some point during their time wasting in the clearing, dusk had approached and visibility became a bit higher for her nocturnal eyes.

She walked and then stood next to him, noticing that his head was tilted far upward toward the canopy. A strong sense of comfort and sincerity surrounded him that she envied and wanted for herself, and as silly as she felt to admit it, she wanted to know what it was.

"I want to show you a thing...my mother showed me it a long time ago," he murmured quietly while continuing to stare up. "Look."

Doing as she was told, Tirith noticed that there were a series of breaks in the canopy over their spot where the foliage couldn't quite hide the sky from view entirely. Orange began to darken and both the light of the moon and the sun were vaguely visible in different directions, a scene she had woken up to countless times. At first she worried they were still wasting time and delaying her inevitable return to the life she now realized she despised; but the longer she stood next to him and just looked, the less silly it felt.

"What you see?"

Immediately she laughed, both at his question and herself; it felt so innocent yet so immature, so honest yet so quaint. For a moment, she tried to understand what it was he wanted, but he didn't leave her for long.

"Not overthink, you; just say me. What you see?"

"The sky peeking in between gaps the canopy."

"And beyond?"

She did her best to just clear her mind and see what her companion was looking at. "Day has ended, night has not yet begun...the sky is between dark and light. It's beautiful. And..." She squinted, determined to speak until she could figure out what it was. "...just barely, the stars are out."

When he snorted and hummed, she knew they were looking at the same thing. "Even through the canopy...you see them, yes?"

"Even when it isn't entirely dark."

"Yes...I remember, I looked before. My mother told me that we walk under this sky. Always, it is there; and always, the stars are there. For that time, I was very small, and I say her - I said her: no, they are not there. I not see them." His mouth opened silently for a second, as if he were stuck in both the past and present, grasping at a memory that returned to him slowly. "She said me: they not go away. In day, the sun is bright; but they are there. At night, there is the canopy; there are the clouds. And when we walk here on the ground, maybe we just see clouds and canopy."

"And whether we see them or not, they're there," Tirith murmured.

"Yes; always. Even if the weather brings clouds, even if there is too much light, the stars are there. Waiting. Shining. And sometimes we think they are not, because we can not see them; sometimes, in the dark, dark time, we worry: maybe the Loa killed them, but this is...is...superstition. Because the stars are always there; and even in the lowest ground, on the stormiest night, we have to try to see them, even if only for a second."

Looking at the clouds instead of another person made her feel numb physically, to the point where she even cast aside her usual situational awareness. Priestess Lamynia taught them that when heroines died, they became stars among the constellations. Tirith believed it in her heart, yet felt so far away. "I haven't been able to see my stars for a long time..." she sighed.

"Must try, you; even when hope is gone. Even when all is sad. Because when you not try, you not live; and if you at least know the stars are there, you try enough. You live enough. You know a truth inside, and that can not taken away; no matter what, the stars are always there, even when we not see." After a few moments he wiggled his ears and shifted, looking back down again. "That is what she said me. Maybe not help; but I hope a small help."

Though the admission of how low she felt about her situation still hurt her, she still envied the simplicity of his outlook; for all his lack of civilization and refinement, he was happier than her despite arguably living in an even worse situation. If he could cope and become relatively content, she could. "I hope so, too...and thank you...Oa-ca-xo."

"Welcome."

She looked at him for a few seconds with no tension or awkwardness. Had she spent three and a half days living and sleeping in close quarters with any other man, she would have experienced a measure of creepiness or at least lame attempts to get close to her. And were she to be asked how she survived, nobody would believe that she'd been helped by a Skullsplitter tribesman on vacation simply for the sake of helping another person. Yet she felt no weirdness nor aggression when their eyes met again; just an appreciation for his common courtesy and a moderate envy for his ability to accept his lot in life.

He looked a bit sad, though. "We need to go. Your camp will send people for you; my tribe will punish me for lateness. But we are not far from the camp of Nesingwary."

"I know...it's time," she conceded, and promptly hefted her gear to follow his lead to the neutral camp. "And Oacaxo...how did you know that I'm at Camp Freedom?"

Their pace was brisk as they hiked once more. "This land is our land; even when we not fight, we watch," he told her over his shoulder, a twinge of disappointment in his voice again.

The hike to Nesingwary's took much less time than she'd expected; their position really was much closer there than to Camp Freedom. As a neutral place for explorers, the camp was active most of the night, and they could hear the commotion and see the lights from the tops of the high walls a good distance away from the nearest beaten paths.

Outside the field of vision of any other travelers, the two of them stopped in a ledge to survey the area. They'd already spoken of their plans for the immediate future after their inevitable parting, but a measure of new sadness floated in between them as they spied on other travelers entering the heavily guarded wooden gates.

"Not thank me again, you," Oacaxo said out of nowhere, already anticipating what she had wanted to tell him. "You thank enough. And let me have tiger skin."

"The help you gave me is worth more than the skins," she replied, watching a group of travelers setting up their tent on the side of the path just outside of the main gate. "I wish I could do more...but I have a feeling this is goodbye."

"Yes...goodbye is better," he said while honing his vision straight ahead as they stood and hid from the main road. "I not ever want to fight you."

The sadness in his voice struck her seeing as how he rarely seemed bothered by anything. It infected her quickly as she accepted that they wouldn't be friends; he wasn't even allowed to have friends among his own people according to what he'd told her during one of their conversations, and he couldn't even enter the camp alongside her. The person who had treated her the kindest since she'd been cursed with duty on that continent was about to walk out of her life.

"If your tribe saw you with me...would they really execute you?"

"I not know; nobody broke the rule before. Maybe execute, maybe less. But I not want to break the rule when I not need to; freedom inside is enough." Swiftly and always without pretense, he looked at her the way she'd expect from a friend she'd known for a longer time. "Goodbye, Tirith Nightshade," he said softly.

"Goodbye, Oacaxo of the Skullsplitter."

Remaining in the ledge for his sake, she waited for a rather long amount of time as he walked in a loop down to the beaten path, accidentally startled a group of Darkspear trolls wearing Horde tabards when he emerged from the underbrush, and entered the still crowded camp after conferring with the heavily armed guards. A sense of loss she hadn't experienced since the painful day she left her village, Serenity Grove, descended upon her as she saw him disappear into the midnight crowd, becoming one of the dozens of people trading furs, herbs and crafts. And as much as she understood the pressure he faced not to interact with outsiders, she felt a faint, immature disappointment when he didn't look back to see her.

The stars shone above as she found herself alert, rested and fully armored, if dirty, sweaty, and encumbered by sacks of stolen goods to return. So many nights, she'd searched for her parents...her second husband...her son. In her heart she believed in what Lamynia taught them about the path of Elune. In the future, Tirith pledged to look for those stars more frequently, no matter how bleak the hour.

Once she was sure she'd appear to be a lone traveler not associated with Oacaxo or anybody else, she descended in a different direction than he had, stepping onto the beaten path and passing the groups of travelers who had decided to sleep outside the camp's walls at their own peril. Rather than interrogating her, the two human guards waved her through the gate, though one of them did give her an odd glance, possibly due to her disheveled appearance and stereotypes that all sub races of elves were always sparkling clean.

Inside, she was surprised to find that there was a decent amount of through traffic even in the middle of the night. The hostel tents were still full, probably to the point of becoming a fire hazard, but there was no shortage of people in the paths. Tents for various vendors and craftspeople - the ones officially associated with Nesingwary's organization - were still operational even at night. Different staff members were there, unfamiliar to her, but they dressed similarly to the others who essentially functioned as the hosts of the camp. Toward the only two actual walled buildings entire place, Tirith tried to get her bearings.

From there, she had to alert someone at Camp Freedom that she was still alive and that their captain and two warriors had fallen, along with five mounts - a devastating blow to such a small outpost. As much as she disliked being there, it was her job; all that was required of her was to do it, and look for her stars.

The lights were on in one of the wooden structures, and talking could be heard inside. A gnoll stood guard out front, and Tirith noticed that nobody was walking in or out. Still, her reason for entering was as good as any other.

"Sir," she said to the short hyena man while holding out the rucksacks. "I have recovered items that were stolen from travelers, and I need help finding the owners. I also need to report three deaths of Alliance troops and the survival of one-"

"Are you from Camp Freedom?" the furry little man asked, cocking one of his spotted eyebrows.

"I am, yes. Our party was ambushed and I've been lost for almost a week."

Before she could continue, the gnoll shouldered his blunderbuss and opened the door to the cabin. "I know who you are, you, the paladin and the two dwarves; there have been search parties all around. Jackie is inside, I think she knows you." Stepping in a way that blocked anyone else from trying to enter, the gnoll pointed to the slightly open door, motioning for Tirith to enter.

"Search parties?" she asked while entering. "Well, thanks for the inform-"

"Sentinel Nightshade!" cried the vaguely familiar voice of a dark skinned human. The moment Tirith walked inside, a drowsy looking Jaquilina Dramet who had been examining an accounting record with an unfamiliar dwarf moved toward her and then stopped as if seeing a ghost. "Oh my god...Miss Nightshade, I can't believe it's you!"

"It is, in the flesh. I'm here, and I'm fine," she chuckled while reluctantly allowing the human to hug her despite the fact that they'd only met once. "There were search parties, as I understand?"

The dwarf, a rather nondescript civilian from his people, gave a similarly perplexed look. "Those were called off yesterday after we found the remains of your party, along with your own blood and some hair," the stocky man said in shock. "You mind telling us how the fel you're alive when your camp's mage testified that she watched you die?"


	10. March 16, year 24

_March 16, year 24_

As much as she enjoyed the time off, being woken up by noisy adventurers and travelers passing by was getting on her nerves. Two days after having been ordered by the local Alliance representative to remain at Nesingwary's camp for an officer to formally inspect her, see that she truly was alive and then 'retrieve' her, and the millennia old sentinel was finding herself a bit idle.

Tirith loosened her grip on her shield, allowing Jaquilina to pull it away despite the fact that the human wouldn't be able to lift it in a thousand years. Forged by wisps from metal blessed by Elune, it was durable and was in no danger of being damaged no matter how much Jaquilina banged it around while trying to be a good host. In a way, it was rather endearing to see the human's hospitality so unending even after two days spent in her cramped personal tent. From what Tirith had experienced over the past year, she'd assumed that their culture didn't value a guest as much as hers did; that assumption was proven to be a bit of an unfair stereotype during her stay in the tent of the camp's chief smith.

Still, it did cause the night elf embarrassment at times - like when Jaquilina literally wrested her shield from her all for the sake of trying to display some sort of homely insistence.

"Your escort hasn't even arrived yet, there's no reason to - hrng! - start packing now!" the human woman who was half Tirith's size huffed while literally dragging the shield to the back end of the tent. On her own, it was likely sufficient for Jaquilina; but when the two of them were inside together, it felt stuffy and cramped and they had to sleep in shifts in order for the arrangement to work out.

Of course, Tirith was no stranger to sharing one bed for two or even eight people and sleeping in shifts; during the Long Vigil, time was no issue and she and her shield sisters would often spend decades on the move at a time as they examined every inch of northern Kalimdor, living out of sleeping bags in the wilderness, hammocks in the huntress lodges or simply the ground. But somehow, it felt a little less tolerable when she found herself stuck.

"Sorry if I seem too eager; I just never understood why they wanted me to stay put for so long," Tirith sighed as she helped the human stand up again. "Really, I could have just left on the first night."

"What, and miss out on all the action here at our camp?" the human joked once she caught her breath.

"Well, it has been a nice break, I have to say. Much nicer than..." Tirith stopped herself before she confessed to too much. Jaquilina happened to be exiting the tent at that moment, and the night elf pretended that she'd stopped in order to help hold the flap open. "Nicer than wandering in the rain forest all by myself for a few days."

"You're going to be a legend around here, just for your information. I actually spoke to old man Nesingwary the other day, he's only heard of, like, two other people doing that. Aside from the locals, obviously." The two of them walked out into broad daylight, and Tirith shielded her eyes from the sun as they maneuvered through the crowds of travelers over to the human's workspace. "Besides, why are you so eager to get back there anyway? This could be your last day off duty in a while, from what William describes to me. About the rotation schedules for you all, I mean."

"Yes, you're right...it's a nice little stay, and this place is fascinating. But..." Shaking her head and exhaling in a loose, relaxed manner more typical of humans than her own people, Tirith shared a laugh with her newfound tentmate. "The regulations of the Alliance make little sense to me. I was prepared to return to Camp Freedom on the first night, or at least the next morning if they insist on forcing us all to be diurnal. I'm literally just sitting here on their payroll, perfectly capable of hiking back on my own in only half a day and they'd rather have me spend two days in order to fill out some papers."

"Welcome to bureaucracy; one of the reasons why I'm not a citizen of the Alliance anymore," Jaquilina chucked. The two of them had to handle a number of eager customers asking about their weapons before they had a moment to spare and talk again.

"I'm sorry, but perhaps I shouldn't have assumed things; I had no idea that humans other than outlaws were allowed to leave the Alliance."

Jaquilina pursed her lips in an odd way as if she were being challenged, though it seemed to be in jest. "I can do whatever I want. I'm not obligated to be a part of this or that group. I'm neutral, and that's how I like it."

"That's so foreign to me; night elves do not have that freedom of choice. We follow our High Priestess and we do what and go where we are told. Our efficiency and power as a society is unparalleled and greatly magnified, considering that our population is literally about one hundredth of that of the orcs or humans." As they spoke, Tirith rearranged polearms that a brand new tauren assistant had laid inside a very long crate in a rush. Despite the fact that the Alliance officer who had ordered her to remain at the camp had given her enough of a stipend for food and water for a few days, she'd insisted on earning her keep while bunking with Jaquilina. It was certainly better than sleeping inside one of the unwashed hostel tents. "We're taught that a society should function as one hand. I always assumed other races did the same thing."

"Honestly, sometimes I feel like we're more chaotic than the orcs," Jaquilina laughed. Laughter seemed to come easy to her, and it was always sincere, unlike many of the others at the camp. "We value the individual; maybe not as much as we claim to, but we like to let people be who they want. And sometimes, that independence leads to people inventing brilliant things and ideas."

A veritable flood of customers had been waiting, and once Jaquilina appeared at her workspace they descended on the tent. Some of them wanted repairs, others were making or checking on orders, a handful were trying to blame their adventuring mishaps on the head smith of the camp and others were simply socializing and being seen at the only place that had a forge. Tirith found it increasingly difficult to carry on a conversation.

"It also leads to infighting - if you don't mind my comment-"

"Not at all. Be who you want to be."

"Ha! Well, I've observed humans joining orcs to fight against other humans and vice versa. It's just shocking to us." Just then, a large, bisque colored object caught Tirith's eye. Normally she wouldn't have paid any mind, but her intuition pressed her to peek over the crowd despite the cantankerous gnome demanding his comically oversized broadsword on one side of the work bench and the flustered tauren assistant demanding help and literally holding back six angry customers with one hand on the other side. "Hold on..."

"Um...well, yeah, a volunteer can always sort of walk away in the middle things," Jaquilina called after the night elf nervously.

"Your helmet didn't protect my from taking an arrow to the knee!" whined a human rogue sporting a bandaged leg.

"Why can't I hit any moving targets with these throwing knives you gave me!" added his dwarven partner with one crossed eye and another one covered by a patch.

"One at a time!" the tauren grumbled in surprisingly fluent Common.

"You're welcome to come back and, you know, help out any time!" Jaquilina called after Tirith while a few camp guards demanded sobriety tests from the six angry customers.

"Just a minute," Tirith called back as she pushed past a few people in the crowd to hone in on a moving pile of blubber in the crowd. When she saw the single horn crowning the head of the previous assistant she remembered as Fug, her blood already began to boil. "Hey!" she growled, grabbing the attention of numerous people in the area.

That single horn rotated until the two of them were facing each other, and Fug's ugly mug went from relaxed to panicked in a matter of seconds. Not even stopping to be sure he was looking at the correct elf, he simply turned around and began walking toward the back of the camp, misunderestimating how fast Tirith was able to catch up and grab ahold of his backpack.

"No touch!" Fug cried as he dropped the backpack and began to run. Smaller people were knocked to the side and a number of visitors at the camp began waving the guards down.

Angry curses in Darnassian flowed from Tirith's mouth as she dodged a few armed guards in her attempt to avenge her three fallen comrades. If she had to, she'd claw Fug's eyes out with her long fingernails - all of her kind had nails long and sharp enough to do so, albeit inefficiently. Only a few inches laid between the back of Fug's neck and her angry swipes as the ogre proved surprisingly agile when running for his life, knocking over trash cans, piles of trade goods and short people as he burst through the back exit of the camp and sprinted toward the river that was the ever significant water source for the explorers' outpost.

Stumbling over laborers who engaged in a sort of laundry service for hire, Fug slipped in the mud and tumbled heels over head much faster than would have been safe for Tirith to follow on such wet soil. She skidded to a stop just as the guards caught up with her, not so much to prevent her from attacking Fug as to watch the train wreck when the ogre fell into the deceptively deep river and found himself unable to swim well enough to fight the current. Splashing and struggling to remain afloat, he eventually realized that the river monsters weren't as scary as the pissed off night elf female and simply allowed himself to be pushed downstream and out of sight.

Neither of the guards risked interrogating Tirith as she huffed and puffed in irritation, and it was only when Jaquilina and the dwarf camp official known as Stonepot intercepted her toward the back of the camp that she calmed down.

"Miss Nightshade, what was that all about?" the dwarf asked as the throngs of travelers mostly ignored the scene and went back to their business.

"Was that Fug?" the human asked before she could say anything.

"Yes, the one that is responsible for the murder of a good warrior," Tirith replied, doing her best to extinguish the internal flame as she allowed Jaquilina to pat her on the back. "I thought he stopped showing up for work around the time my party was attacked?"

"He did, and I assumed he'd just bailed and found another job, which occasionally happens with drifters like that," Jaquilina answered. Stonepot surreptitiously waved the guards away and the launderers promptly returned to their jobs, possibly used to seeing such brawls occur. Jaquilina led the three of them back toward the smithing tent as they spoke. "This is the first time we've seen him since he absconded. It's very well likely that he assumed you were dead and forgotten, and that he was safe to come waltzing back in."

"Here's to hoping the crocs get hem before he finds a safe place te crawl back onte dry land," Stonepot laughed while parting from the two women. "Jackie, I have some things te handle with the cartographer in here. Miss Nightshade, if I don't see ye before yer escort arrives, then I wish ye all the best," he told them before disappearing into one of the cabins again.

"And you as well, Mister Stonepot." The two of them strolled back toward the smithing tent, which by that time had calmed down and been cleared of the whining customers that had been crowding the area before. "May the curse of the moon be upon that tub of lard, Fug."

"Here's to hoping that he never has the chance to ambush someone on a lonely jungle highway again," Jaquilina said as they returned to her workspace. The tauren assistant had managed to straighten up the area and rearrange some of the work materials once all the whiners had been sent away. "You know, I didn't want to mention it until now, but I'm very sorry for what happened to your comrades."

"What's done is done, and they fought valiantly and slayed many of those bandits. I only wish that Captain Nicholas had the opportunity to take some of those miscreants down as well."

"I remember him, such a great man. So were the others. And Persephone-" In mid sentence, Jaquilina stopped talking as Tirith growled involuntarily when the half elf's name was mentioned. Laying her tongs down on the dusty anvil, she leaned against her workbench and spoke to the full blooded elf in a low tone. "You're mad that she thought you had actually died, aren't you?"

"She never thought I died," Tirith muttered. "Keep that between you and me, because I have no way of substantiating that."

"Oh, don't worry. I understand. It would be her word against yours, and you're outside of your element here. But seriously, are you sure she wasn't just mistaken?"

"That little bitch even apologized before she fled, claiming she was too young to die. A coward through and through, and a lying one at that." After rubbing her eyes for a moment, Tirith snorted and waved her hand. "Whatever, it's over. She knows what she did, and I won't forget it either."

For a few moments the two of them sat silently in place, waiting as the tauren assistant noticed the seriousness emanating from them and handled another pushy customer on his own. Jaquilina waited briefly before straightening up and taking up her tongs again. "I don't envy your living situation there. All I can say is stick by Khadijah and William; I've known them for a while and they're both good people. Everybody needs friends, especially as far from home as you are."

Cynicism took over, and Tirith found herself grabbing the nearest pile of assorted weapons without even checking whose order they were a part of. "Technically, I don't have a home to return to. My village is subject to the faction's zoning laws, now; I can't just walk right in and set up a tent wherever I like and demand that food be grown for me by the priestess anymore." At that, Jaquilina looked as if she wanted to say something but was at a loss. "Miss Dramet-"

"Jackie!"

"Jackie...don't feel obligated to solve my problems. Nobody can carry the burdens of another. We all need friends, but we all need to handle our own problems as well." Seating herself at the grinding stone, Tirith began sharpening and polishing whatever weapons she'd picked up, doing her best to focus her mind on topics other than Fug, Persephone or her severed roots.

Eventually Jaquilina returned to work as well, and they spent a great deal of time that early morning just tempering and perfecting weapons that Jaquilina's assistants forged - her specialty had more to do with the fine tuning of gear once it had been fashioned than the actual grunt work of forging the metal. Without any sentry work to do, there was little else to occupy Tirith's time save chatting with Jaquilina when she was off duty and eating out of boredom. Of course, if she worked alongside the human, they could chat while working, and the hours went by fast. At least one upside to her post at Camp Freedom was that, since her higher devotion to protecting nature eternally had come to an end, Tirith at least had a lower devotion to occupy her final, twilight years. Those two days spent milling about the neutral camp waiting for an unnecessary escort did help her realize that.

Hours had passed and the day had progressed into the late morning - and thus very close to Tirith's nap time based on the mattress sharing schedule she'd arranged with Jaquilina - by the time the miniature Alliance caravan arrived. Out of the corner of her eye Tirith had noticed them enter based on the color of their tabards - three armored persons and two cloth wearers - and promptly ducked behind the confused tauren assistant who merely shrugged his shoulders and continued his work. Given that the group would likely need to sign needless, wasteful paperwork printed on the flesh of murdered trees, there was no reason to greet them just yet; Tirith would much rather rush off to Jaquilina's tent than stand idly by while the party sipped on tea with the local Alliance representative.

As she'd expected, the greetings and hand shaking at the minuscule Alliance tent - more like a booth with a tarp over it - truly had taken quite a bit of time. When Tirith felt Jaquilina shaking her to wake her up, she actually felt rather rested and only had to pop one or two of her joints before standing up.

"They're ready, Tirith," the human whispered to her so as not to bombard her the moment she'd woken up.

"Yeah, I can hear...oh dear White Lady, did they send Persephone?" Tirith groaned as her eyes snapped open.

Jaquilina bit her lip in hesitation. "Yeah, uh, yeah. Apparently she is traumatized by having seen you die and claimed she needed to accompany the group here to be sure that you truly survive-"

"Oh bullshit."

"Ha! Ahaha! Tirith, I've never heard you cuss!"

"Me neither. This little twat is the first person to make my list."

"Don't make a scene, alright? Remember, her word against yours won't end up well. Just eat crow-"

"It's like I can hear her voice right now!" a nasally, high pitched voice cried from outside the tent, causing both occupants to roll their eyes.

"Might as well get this over with," Tirith groaned again as she opened the tent flap. Waiting for her outside were three armored human footmen and a priest that was perhaps one quarter elven.

Always the center of attention, Persephone dropped her staff which she hadn't had a reason to have been wielding anyway and stumbled into Tirith's arms. "Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!" she panted far too loudly near Tirith's long ears as she soaked the night elf's leather jerkin in crocodile tears.

"Corporal Nightshade, I presume?" one of the footmen asked, already setting Tirith's blood to boil.

" _Sentinel_ Nightshade, at your service," she forced herself to drone back in an unaggressive tone of voice.

"I thought you were dead, it's a miracle!"

"I take it all the necessary paperwork has been filed for my return to the camp?" Tirith asked the footman who appeared to be the leader of the group.

"You saved my life!"

"Yes, I do believe that all preparations have been made for your departure. Once you suit up, we're all ready to leave."

"I think I'm experiencing post traumatic stress disorder!"

"My gear is inside the tent of Miss Dramet here, who has been a great help, by the way."

"I haven't been able to sleep because I have nightmares about losing you!"

"Can you please stop crying directly on to my leather, Persephone?"

"I'm so glad you're alive!"

"I'll prepare your gear," Jaquilina snickered while disappearing into the tent.

Holding an arm around Tirith's shoulder and hanging onto her uncomfortably close, Persephone turned toward the men in the group teary eyed. "This woman is the most valiant warrior I've ever seen. To have fought so bravely against an entire pack of ogres is just unbelievable." The four men all nodded and gaped in a way that drained Tirith of all her willpower just to avoid using Persephone as a blunt instrument to whack them all over the head.

"An entire pack?" one of the footpads asked in awe.

Placing one hand on her chest - which was covered by an inappropriately and impractically low cut excuse for a mage's top garment - Persephone cast what Tirith assumed to be an arcane charm spell on the group. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to go on patrol outside of the camp again," the half elf sobbed.

"I'll see to it that you'll never have to!" the lead footpad boasted.

"I think I need to go don my gear now." Tirith had to practically pry Persephone off of her just so she could escape the group and sit up with Jaquilina's help.

"I know you have to get back to work, but I'm really going to miss having you around," the human told her while helping her buckle her back plate in the cramped tent.

"Once a week, I get one day off, and once every two months I get three days off," Tirith explained as they tightened all her plate straps. "Considering the fact that I really have nobody else aside from Khadijah and William, I can try to spend some of that time here."

"You're welcome any time. My mattress is just barely long enough to accommodate you and is always lice free!" Finished from the actual armor straps, Jaquilina did her best to hand Tirith her shield and glaive, finding them ready for her departure. "Well, I'd hug you, but you're too tall and your armor is cold and kind of sharp edged."

"That works out fine for me; we prefer bowing to physical contact. Ishnu alah, Jackie." Tirith exchanged a bow with the woman who had been her rather gracious host for two days before exiting the tent.

Darkness had nearly fallen by the time the group had reached Camp Freedom. Despite the fact that she wrote the heaviest armor of all the party members and found her stamina less than what it once was after having lost her immortality, Tirith was still able to move at a much brisker pace than everyone else. Although she'd begun to sweat again once they'd reached the front gate - another post immortality habit she experienced difficulty adjusting to - she was in much better shape than even the waifish Persephone. A brand new set of dwarven guards had been posted outside the main gate. They didn't recognize Tirith, and she felt a bit of sadness return as she whispered a silent prayer for the two men whose names she hadn't even learned.

Inside, the bonfire was burning and people were strumming instruments and trying to sing as they often did at night. Determined to rectify her sleep schedule for good, Tirith fought off sleep and intended to force herself awake. The sign in process at the camp command center alone nearly jeopardized that determination as she spent a good half an hour filing reports to explain how exactly she had survived the bandit ambush. Of course, Persephone's claim of having witnessed Tirith stoned to death by a pack of boulder hurling ogres was simply glossed over, though that glossing led to the signin process being shorted, and thus Tirith raised no issue.

Although William was out of the camp escorting a group of cartographers who had been scouting rather late, Khadijah was present in the camp and apparently heard that their comrade had managed to survive. The moment Tirith stepped out of the command cabin, the human priestess was waiting for her; unlike the half elf mage, Khadijah's tears were downplayed, silent and very much real.

Bundled up in a loose shawl despite the warm spring night in Stranglethorn, Khadijah leaned against the wall of the armory, only a few feet between her and Tirith. Ever mindful of the elf's personal space, the human waited for Tirith to acknowledge her presence before saying anything.

"It's nice to be back," Tirith offered while stepping forward. She already knew that once the proverbial door had been opened she wouldn't be able to avoid physical contact, and simply walked into the human's hug.

"I never believed the news when they told me you died," Khadijah said softly, her voice surprisingly clear and her tears already beginning to abate. "Somehow in my heart, I knew the worst had befallen the others. But it didn't feel right when they claimed you fell as well."

"Anyone who wants to take a crack at this old elf needs to take a number and get in line, as your people say," Tirith laughed as she pulled away and looked Khadijah over to be sure the human really was alright. "Those bandits were far, far from being the first to try. I have a feeling that they won't be the last."

"Oh, don't say that!" Khadijah mock cried as they walked toward the women's barracks. "Let this be the last time, please."

"Dont worry about me. Worry about the others, not about me."

"I'm the only healer in the camp now; my job is to worry about you all. Oh! By the way! There was talk here of promoting you to sergeant once we received news that you'd emerged from the wilderness near Nesingwary's camp."

The hair follicles on Tirith's scalp bristled, and she could already feel herself tensing up. "That's...that's...news." She sighed, wondering how to explain to a human priestess who worshipped the Light and believed in the Alliance how much she really, truly didn't care what sort of titles the faction bestowed upon her. "That discussion might need to wait for the later," Tirith practically breathed out, stumbling over the words as she struggled for the right thing to say.

Lucky for her, Khadijah appeared to understand. "You know, you're right. You've been bunking at some foreign camp and then you traveled half a day here, and you're still in your armor. Hey, since we're here," the human said while motioning toward the door of the women's barracks, "why don't you just change and hit the bathing area. The barracks are empty since we're all staying up a little late tonight, so you can take your time and...maybe join us around our little bonfire, for once?"

For over half a year Tirith had managed to dodge every invitation the other settlers at the camp had sent her way, discovering a decent schedule by which she was always unable to socialize with them. Her kind were quiet anyway, and she had no desire to allow herself to grow close to such unwise, inexperienced beings whose government she blamed for the dilution of her former village's culture. But there was such a kindness in Khadijah's eyes when she asked, such a sincere warmth for a woman from a society that typically regarded anyone other than humans, dwarves, gnomes or high elves as abominations, that she felt it wrong to disappoint the priestess' attempt to reach out across the cultural divide.

"Let me freshen up and think about it," the night elf replied while pending the door. "I'm best, but perhaps a bit of relaxation will help with that."

"The ball is in your court, but we'd all love to have you!"

"What ball?" Tirith asked, stopping short of entering the door.

"Um...the choice is yours?"

"Ah, I understand. Thank you so much for the offer, but give me a few minutes to decide while I change out."

"Take your time, please! No pressure!"

At that, the human walked back toward the source of the sound that humans and dwarves believed qualified as music, and the night elf stepped into the dimly lit barracks. Her ultravision allowed her to see just fine in the dark and she would have preferred it entirely unlit, but as the only person with such an eye physiology, she didn't feel it her right to blow the candles out. Suddenly the aching in Tirith's feet and calves felt particularly acute as she found herself finally alone and able to rest, and there was a soothing, almost pleasant pain at each step as she walked over toward her bunk in the far corner of the barracks.

While the rest of the women had to share two tiered bunk beds, Tirith was by far the tallest person of any gender in the entire camp, and had to sleep on a specially designed bed that the outpost's dwarven commander had complained about incessantly. Her footlocker served to contain her clothing - all of which had been left untouched - as well as her leathers. Her armor and weapon would need to be returned to the armory, but there was time for all that. For the time being she simply tossed her shield, glaive, helmet and boots on her bed and began working on her gauntlets when she stopped.

And paused.

And froze.

And thought.

Tirith's bed was there.

Her foot locker was untouched.

Her nightstand had been dusted off for her.

Her small amount of personal effects had been left beneath the bed for her.

The door to the unused closet that she had claimed for storage was open and unmarked.

And empty.

Void.

Cleared out.

Everything she owned was right where it belonged except for-

"We need you to cover the last third of tonight's shift. Your colleagues all sleep at normal hours and have been put under a strain by having to cover your graveyard shift."

Marge's voice was flat and neutral, bearing not a hint of the woman's true malice as she addressed Tirith from the doorway. Unheard, she'd managed to sneak the door open when the night elf had been in her flustered search for the only possession she valued on par with the personal prayer book Priestess Lamynia had authored especially for her upon her departure from their village. The convenient coincidence of Marge's timing and the tidiness with which Tirith's personal space had been kept wouldn't have been lost on an ogre.

"Are you still experiencing difficulty in regard to the Common language, soldier?" the camp's commander asked in s perfect tone bearing neither open hostility nor mock concern. Every avenue was always covered with Marge, and she took great care to ensure that nobody could ever fault her for anything.

Staring at the empty closet with watery eyes, Tirith grit her teeth so hard that she worried her molars would be damaged. Blood poured all the way up into the tips of her long earlobes and Marge may or may not have said something else before Tirith had calmed herself down and turned around. The look on Marge's face was one of blank, distant neutrality save the subtlest of smirks at the corner of her mouth.

Throwing the usual Kaldorei obedience to authority in all circumstances, the night elf felt her respect for the task that the central military commission in Darnassus had assigned her melt away as the raw, feral child of the stars took control.

" **Where is my fucking easel** ," she snarled, giving Marge a death gaze that would have scared Archimonde himself.

Given pause only for a moment, the typical smug arrogance of the camp commander fought for control and Marge pursed her lips into a thin line. A pin drop would have echoed like a volcano erupting had one rung out at that moment, and for the first time in her life Tirith seriously considered going rogue and assaulting a superior officer.

After gathering up more hatred than bravery, Marge replied: "We were informed that you had died. The closet was emptied for use by the general staff-"

"It's empty and unused by all you walking piece of shit!"

Rather than cower away, a smirk even more subtle yet somehow more sinister as well worked its way onto Marge's face. "Disrespecting a superior officer: three days of duty cleaning the latrines. By yourself."

The flood gates were opened; in ten millennia Tirith had not used foul language. Persephone opened the gates but Marge triggered the flood. "My art supplies were in that closet and you put them under my bed, you stupid, unloved cunt-"

"Four days."

"-and there is plenty of room under there for the easel, the stand and five spare bedrolls and you, you yellow toothed, uneducated bazaar hag, knew that!"

Daggers flared in Marge's eyes as the advantage shifted. All the camp knew that she was the daughter of a merchant - the social class accorded the least respect among dwarves since they profited from the craftsmanship of other people - and that she bore a deep inferiority complex over it. Spite flared as it already had, but that objective edge was lost.

"Wha - I _order_ you to stand down! Five days!"

"I'm standing down, right here on my bunk, asking where you placed my private property!"

"Six days!"

"You have no basis for that extra day and I swear by your illiterate family that I'll appeal and force you to ride with me all the way to the district court in Stormwind!"

"Two weeks for slander!"

"That isn't slander, it's a fact that your mother can't read and you went to a public school because your family _can't even make anything_!"

Marge growled, losing her cool and her head and stupidly taking a step forward. Seizing the opportunity, Tirith stood up and stomped her foot hard on the floor of the barracks, shaking the ground under nearly three hundred pounds of furious feral elf and shocking Marge enough to send her stumbling back and running out of the barracks.

"I'll have you court martialed you Light damned forest dwelling savage!" the camp commander shouted like a petulant child as she ran toward her quarters.

Victory was fleeting, and the joy of knowing that Marge couldn't actually court martial her over a personality conflict was quickly replaced by the despair of her easel still being lost. Before Tirith could even sit down and truly feel the emotional sting of having been robbed of the only true passion she had left in her life, Khadijah and a human sentry Tirith recognized as someone friendly showed up at the door of the barracks.

Unable to enter the door since he was a man, the sentry stood just out of view until Khadijah inspected the room, saw nothing but an apoplectic night elf on the verge of tears and sent him away. Closing the door behind her, the priestess moved forward without fear and hugged Tirith again, tugging her to sit down on the bunk.

"She's gone now," Khadijah whispered, proving to be a fantastic counselor as well as healer. "If you want to yell, yell at me; it's okay."

Breathing deeply, Tirith shook her head and struggled to get her heart rate under control. In the past she could do so near instantaneously; now that she had stsrted ageing like the younger races, she found the anger dizzying and difficult to suppress. Patience like one of her own people infused the human next to her, and Khadijah didn't even flinch when Tirith fell into her native tongue due to her seething but gradually stabilizing rage.

"By the night, I will not live my last years under that midget," she swore, remembering the promise she'd made to herself months ago. "I will find my stars...and I will follow them out of this place."


	11. April 24, year 24

_April 24, year 24_

Tirith took her time wiggling into her light cotton trousers and upper garment that the humans referred to as a T shirt that evening. For once, she didn't challenge herself to uphold records for time when performing even the most mundane and everyday tasks. That had become an unquestionable habit for many Kaldorei her age a long time ago; not only was there little else to do for entertainment, but it also served their overall goal of efficiency and constant betterment on the job. One of the few habits she worked hard to retain when so far from her homeland, it was a conscious decision to forego it that evening; since she would be receiving a visitor for the first time since her arrival, she wanted to make sure that she was as relaxed as possible.

The letter on the nightstand didn't help that cause, and it was a task to see how many tea saucers, empty wrappers and silver coins she could lay out in order to conceal the envelope. True to what Khadijah had told her the previous month, the central authorities of the Alliance in Stormwind - _not_ Darnassus - had written to inform her that she was being offered a promotion in rank, bringing with it the magnanimous boon of higher pay and the honorable duty of another five years of guaranteed service in the faction's military. Even thinking of the language used by military leaders a fraction of a fraction of her age, waving around a fancy title as if she were some youngblood, caused her back muscles to stiffen.

Air passed through her pursed lips as she sighed. Tonight wouldn't be the night for that; this was her single night off after six nights of overtime duty, a boon that truly was generous in her view; night elves didn't have weekends traditionally. That she would, at long last, receive not only a visitor but one of the twenty four people so near and dear to her heart only made that single night off all the sweeter and more desirable. Focusing on that good point helped her to forget much of the depression she'd faced since being ripped out of the only home she'd known for such a long, almost uncountable period of time.

"I've never seen you so visibly happy, Tirith; I feel warm just being around you," sounded off Khadijah's voice from across the barracks. Tirith had known the priestess was there, but as a general rule talking inside the sleeping quarters of stationed personnel was kept at a minimum. Their only refuge and source of privacy was meant to be a place of peace and quiet.

Taking her time as she swiveled around on the edge of her bed to face the small human, Tirith felt her cheeks pull as she involuntarily grinned at the compliment. "I'm sorry...we don't normally show our feelings so much," she apologize.

"Why on Azeroth would you say sorry? You have such a lovely smile." A sincerity that seemed unbecoming of the outlanders radiated from Khadijah as she moved to stand before the night elf sentinel seated on the bed; the two of them were still eye to eye in such a position. "I wish we could see this side of Sentinel Nightshade more often."

"You flatter me, Miss Narume," Tirith chuckled softly while blushing.

"So this friend of yours, will she restrain her feelings as well? Or will we get to see two night elves actually showing emotion for once?"

"Oh stop, now I almost feel nervous about it. After I was deployed to the Eastern Kingdoms, I only saw my friend one time before I came here. I just need to calm down and be ready to act normal."

"I'm sure you will. But sometimes, it's fun to let your true self shine through a little, isn't it?"

For a moment, Tirith kept quiet, always on guard when the topic of her private sentiments came up. If there was anybody outside of her village who she could trust, though, it was Khadijah. Forcing herself not to be so closed off, she allowed herself to smile again. "Sometimes...not often, but sometimes. And you know-"

Just then, a familiar knock came at the door in a pattern of three light raps. "Sentinel Nightshade?" asked William from outside the door of the barracks. "Our sentry in the watchtower sighted the convoy in which your guest is traveling. If you'd like to meet her at the camp gate, now would be a good time."

After holding still under Khadijah's expectant gaze for a moment, Tirith grinned and stood up, garnering laughter that sounded as pleasant as a human's voice could be from the priestess. "I'll be there in...zero seconds!" Tirith joked as she and her much shorter companion dashed for the door.

Outside, the moon had risen and the civilian workers and day shift soldiers could already be heard around their usual spot for socializing. William stood to the side of the door of the women's barracks so as not to be able to see inside, always the chivalrous knight that most human males seemed to fail to be. He looked a bit worn and hadn't yet changed out of his armor save his helmet, and his hair looked a little messy. Persephone, who had actually shut up for once, stood next to him in a flagrantly inappropriate evening dress and wielded her staff for no apparent reason. The area between the barracks and the next building felt a little cramped.

Before anyone else could speak, Tirith tried to loosen up a little bit more. "You look like you use a bit of a break," she joked, though nobody laughed and the knight only nodded in affirmation.

Khadijah reached forward and brushed William's hair away from his face, making Tirith slightly uncomfortable and Persephone slightly jealous at the display of affection. "Is it just me or is the climate really becoming more humid lately?"

"It truly is; I know we're in the tropics, but I didn't realize we'd feel like we're swimming through the air rather than walking through it," he replied while pretending to adjust his collar to he could brush the other human's finger with his own. "Miss Nightshade, if your guest needs access to our bathing area or other facilities, then consider it granted; she's one of the personnel tonight."

Tirith's eyes widened, and she nearly found herself speechless at the gesture. She rarely socialized with anyone else, and the generosity was completely unexpected. "Sir William...you honor both me and my guest. I am in your debt."

"No, absolutely not; this is common courtesy and respect among comrades. We don't count debts among ourselves," he replied with a small half salute using two fingers.

A comfortable silence settled in and the full elf and one of the humans began to bid the half elf and other human farewell, quietly maneuvering around each other to go their separate ways. Clinking armor and a familiar irritated voice alerted them of the approaching camp commander before the woman and a random human footman who Tirith didn't recognized round the corner of the opposite building. Her heart sank immediately upon seeing her commanding officer.

"Good evening, all," Marge said to the entire group in what she probably thought was a pleasant voice. "Khadijah, apparently part of the shipment of first aid supplies was hidden behind those cartons of cheese we received the other day; it doesn't have to be tonight, but inventory will need to be taken before your assistant arrives on Tuesday."

"Of course, commander."

Inside her head, Tirith repeated a vulgar mantra against Marge in hope that the commander would spontaneously combust, but much to her chagrin the angry dwarf remained intact and turned toward the off duty night elf. "And _you_ ," Marge said to Tirith using an emphasis so subtle that she couldn't technically call the squat humanoid out on it. "Our nighttime sentry that covers for you each week isn't feeling well. I'll need you to work overtime this week." At no point during the sentence did Marge even make eye contact with Tirith, simply glancing at the part of the sentinel's cheek beneath her eyes instead and then quickly turning back to the armored human next to her. "Now, what we have next-"

" **Nobody** covers for me, Marge; I have the legal right to one night off a week," Tirith nearly shouted as she blocked the commander's path out and tried to drown out the dwarf's voice.

At the sound of the Amazon woman raising her voice, Khadijah tried to intervene. "Margaret, perhaps something can be worked out-"

"Soldier, you work are here to protect our settlement during the nighttime and that's exactly what we need you to do tonight. _Do your job_. You aren't better than anyone else-"

"We _all_ have weekends here; you have absolutely _no_ business speaking to me on mine. Stop harassing me."

Persephone began inching away from the group in the background, working her way toward the opposite corner of the next building and holding perfectly still. Even Khadijah was given pause as the two people argued, and William facepalmed as if he were working hard not to get involved.

"Bearing false witness is a punishable offense, soldier!" Marge shot back, sneering in a way that indicated how much she'd been pining for the argument.

"Sentries have fallen ill before and you found a way to avoid overtime! You're doing this specifically because you won't want me to spend time with my guest!"

This time, Khadijah was the one whose eyes widened, but not out of admiration of a sense of gratitude. "Whoa, now wait a minute, maybe we should all take a break for a few minutes-"

"I'm sorry, Priestess Narume, but there isn't any time for breaks just because one soldier is unsatisfied at her slow speed of promotion," Marge replied, though not to Khadijah as she finally had the gall to look Tirith in the eye. " _You_ ," the dwarf practically barked while pointing at the night elf in a way that would be offensive in any culture, "get to work."

Rage built up inside and Tirith wanted to say too many things she knew she wouldn't have the time to say before being cut off. The fact that Marge kept trying to walk around her and leave as if the ugly bazaar wench somehow had any right at all, for a single second, to even think she could make demands of Tirith and only Tirith on the single day of leave every week angered the night elf so much that she almost felt dizzy.

The speed at which her anger rose worrying her, Tirith tried to decisively end the conversation. " _No!_ Go ahead and file for administrative leave and travel for a day and back to Stormwind to argue your case against me that I refused to work the only weekend when _I_ had formal permission to host a visitor!"

"I swear! You _will_ be court martialed!"

"Then do it! Do it! Stop threatening like you did last time and just do it, you merchant's daughter!"

"You're an idol worshipping heathen descended from trolls!"

"I'll stand guard!" William shouted over them from halfway toward the main gate, robbing Marge of her chance to stop him and causing a confused silence for a moment.

"Wha - Sir Argyle, you just got off a ten hour shift, safety regulations prevent you from taking responsibility for a security position without approved overtime!" the angry dwarf stammered, shocked by the show of defiance from the quietest and most obedient member of the staff.

Sprinting into action, Khadijah patted Tirith on the arm from an angle that Marge couldn't see and ran after her knight. "Unless he has a designated healer on duty for the duration of his overtime!" the priestess shouted as well while following him, pulling a legal act that would have made a Dalaran bureaucrat proud.

Panic washed over Marge's face as first the knight and then the priestess rounded the corner. Her plan slipping away, she called after them in vain. "You just got off a ten hour shift, too - wait, this needs to be sorted out!" For no readily apparent reason, Persephone ran after the two humans as if to punctuate that even the camp's biggest ass kisser recognized the commander's defeat.

Tirith could have gloated, or added a few jabs to punctuate the point that Marge's attempt to ruin her miniature holiday had failed miserably. Instead, the night elf turned and walked away, not even giving the angry dwarf another look as she walked after her friends at the most casual pace possible. On her official days off, Marge had absolutely no authority over her unless a state of emergency for the entire camp was declared, which of course the dwarf couldn't do without a real reason. And to even go as far as to state that would have been more attention than Marge deserved; silence and disengagement were the most powerful, painful weapon for such wretches, the sentinel thought to herself.

Ignoring the curses hurled at her by a superior who had just lost a measure of her symbolic power by losing her cool, Tirith hurried over to the main gate, knowing that she would still owe a debt to the two humans no matter what they said. Unlike the others, they ignored Tirith's constant attempts to rebuff them all and continued to display concern for her well being; in her view, she owed them quite a bit more for their patience. In retrospect, she even felt a little bad.

Outside the main walls of the camp, Tirith felt the atmosphere grow a little less humid due to the open air. Just beyond the gate sat Khadijah, William and the two new dwarven guards on a series of empty crates; Persephone sat on a rickety but proper chair in the jungle grass and had a gnomish cosmetics dealer seated on her lap. While the revelry continued inside the camp among a larger group of people, the party of six beneath the watchtower seemed perfectly content to remain where they were. Even the two dwarves, who had just prepared to retire from a shift as long as William's, had let their guard down, let their beards loose and even removed some of their armor as they produced cheese and meat filled pastries seemingly out of nowhere.

It only took Tirith a few seconds to figure out what was going on, and her heart fluttered at the kindness. "Really, I don't know how I can repay you all...I don't know what I would have done otherwise," she sighed in a comfortable relief.

Though the two dwarves had obviously chosen to stay, not enough time had elapsed since they'd sat down with Khadijah, William and Persephone for the two stout men to have been fully informed of the conflict inside. They nodded regardless, neither of them bearing any regret in their eyes. The gnome, who had already been outside apparently, looked entirely lost and Persephone exuded a moderate sense of resentment, but otherwise it was a pleasant scene of tired people who'd given up sleep that night just so the surly sentinel could host her guest.

"We're siblings in arms, now; that's what we do," William laughed, seeming to rather enjoy himself with the group of friends.

Khadijah appeared just as happy to be there despite not having been able to change out of her day clothes. "All of us are far from family here, Tirith; if we don't stick together, then we have nothing." Though nobody else quite understood the demure priestess' words, Tirith understood the subtle encouragement from the woman who invited her to socialize with the others at least once a week no matter how many times the night elf made up excuses.

"I don't even know what to say..."

"Say that ye'll come te our barbecue next time our days off all coincide, lass," one of the two unidentified dwarves laughed heartily.

Warmth touched her in a way which wasn't as intense as how she felt around her former shield sisters, but which was endearing nonetheless. "I...I guess I will!" Tirith agreed without even giving the matter a second thought.

At some point during the light conversation outside the main gate, the truant convoy that was nearly an hour late emerged from the bush just off of the beaten path leading to the open grassy area in front of the camp. Unable to focus on what the others were saying any longer, Tirith's heart thumped in her chest at such a forceful rate that she could feel her pulse up in her throat. Among the sizeable group of both civilians and Alliance soldiers entering the clearing, a number of people bearing their own tents began to set up shop on the grass, sleeping for free and close enough to the settlement for their safety to be as guaranteed as it could be in such an inhospitable environment. There were people of almost every race present: humans, dwarves and gnomes composed the overwhelming majority, though a handful of goblin and gnoll merchants peppered the crowd of people walking through the camp gates and ostensibly toward the only inn. Two or three high elves could be seen, and Tirith spied another sentinel entering the camp who tried to wave to her but was drowned out and ushered inside by the boisterous group of outlanders she was traveling with.

Nowhere could she find her guest for the evening at first, and it almost became a game as Tirith tried to scan the crowds while simultaneously avoiding the annoying outlander habit of gawking at strangers. Using as little head and neck movement as possible, she stood above the two dwarven guards and William as they took tally of whoever was entering the camp. It was the perfect distraction for the most outstanding personality from the ancient night elf village known as Serenity Grove to sneak up on its long lost shield sister.

"You let your guard down," a voice as playful as the restrained Kaldorei could be whispered into Tirith's ears from behind. Concealed by the shadows beneath the watchtower, the figure proved stealthy but not fast enough to move when Tirith spun around and grabbed the other woman by the arms.

"Oh! My! Goddess! I can't believe you're here, even if we planned this in advance for a month," Tirith cried out in Darnassian as she broke almost every elven rule of propriety and felt the skin of her former shield sister just to ensure that it wasn't all a dream.

As if knowing what the much older elf was thinking, the younger - only a thousand years old - elf laughed quieter than the members of other races lingering around the gate, but much louder than was normal for their people. "Yes, I'm real; in the flesh. Silviel of Serenity does not forget a soul."

"Is that what you're calling yourself now? I love it!" Tirith chuckled, self consciously covering her hand afterward. "By the night, what's come over me? I'm behaving like the outlanders now!"

Silviel pulled her a little further away from the crowd to give all the much shorter people more space. Standing against the wall of Camp Freedom, the two of them went mostly unnoticed even by Khadijah, who was busy answering questions for weary travelers. "We've come out into this brave new world, haven't we? We're bound to be more influenced by it than we like."

"Woman, can I tell you about that! And...oh, Silviel, there's so much to discuss. I've been out here without any of you for so long."

"I'll be here all night, and tomorrow night, before I have to actually leave," the younger elf explained. The ultramarine ponytail that marked all the women in Silviel's family wafted up and down as she spoke, hypnotizing Tirith no matter how many centuries they'd already spent together. "So even when you're on duty tomorrow, I'll be right here with you."

"You better believe it - I won't let you leave until it's absolutely necessary," Tirith laughed. Looking back, the crowd behind them had cleared up somewhat and the two dwarves had been able to sit down again. Khadijah and William spoke quietly as they walked back over to the group, and Persephone had never moved from her spot. Tirith turned back to Silviel, noticing that the woman was still wearing her armor much like the others. "Come on," she beckoned, "why don't we go thank my peers here for helping to make at least one night off possible and then get you out of that armor. I need to savor every minute you're here."

* * *

As always, Silviel proved popular with everyone she met and the other staff members at Camp Freedom were no exception. Despite being one of the youngest members of Serenity Grove, Silviel was largely considered the most athletic, charming, outgoing and motivated of the twenty five women considered the originals at their ancestral village. Since High Priestess Whisperwind decreed that their people join the Alliance, those originals were crowded out and scattered by duty, tragedy and simple economics such as inflation and foreign land regulations. Most of them did their best to stay in touch however they could, though in a world where letters across continents took more than a month to reach their destination, that often proved difficult. For Tirith, Silviel and the handful of others who had continued to serve in the military after the Sentinels went from being an independent faction to a small contingent absorbed by the Alliance, those rare occasions when they could see each other again - see the same small group of women who had lived with each other and only each other for thousands of years - were like major personal holidays.

After socializing with the other staff members for the first time in the entire eight months she'd been posted out there, Tirith felt as though she'd had enough of the quirky habits of the younger lived races for one night and led Silviel to the women's barracks where she could finally strip her armor and freshen up. As a sabre rider who dismounted to fight on the front lines in battle - the humans referred to Tirith's position as a dragoon or hussar - she was noticeably taller than Silviel, who was medium infantry. Still, the younger elf seemed much more at ease once she had a pair of Tirith's long casual clothes on, and the conversation they'd held regarding the logistics of Silviel's visit and upcoming tours of duty gave way to a pleasant silence as they snuck out the back entrance of the camp.

Out in the mangroves, the two children of the stars were able to climb on the tall, bumpy trees in a way even the much lighter inhabitants of the camp couldn't. Easily traversing the branches of the lower canopy with lots of grace and no fear of falling into the swamp below, they found themselves a spot in view of the camp for safety but far out enough over the light current to be separate from the others. A few crockolisks eyed them from below, but the distance was too far for the reptiles to cover in a single leap. It was peaceful, relaxing and in nature, even if it wasn't the temperate environment they were used to.

Serene.

Once a considerable amount of time had passed as the duo stargazed, Tirith turned to her younger counterpart, a sly smile on her face. "Alright, practicalities are out of the way. First thing's first: is it true?" she asked intently.

Being coy like only an immature thousand year old would, Silviel seemed to quite enjoy keeping a secret. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Tell me!"

"Tell you what, big shield sister?"

"Come on!"

"No, really, because there are so many rumors flying around that I honestly don't know which one you're asking about," Silviel chuckled.

Silence descended between the two of them as Tirith leaned a little closer to the woman who she'd once held in her arms as an infant when assisting Silviel's mother Caledith. The woman who was once an energetic young girl full of an enthusiasm lacking in the ancient elves, immortal at that time and almost non sentient from their repetitive habits. Honesty shone in Silviel's eyes as it always did, and Tirith knew that the girl she'd helped communally raise into the brave young woman next to her on the tree branch was ready to talk directly.

"Did you land the blow that killed Nefarian?" the older elf asked quietly.

Silviel smiled shyly, bashful in a way she would never show toward anyone outside of their village of twenty five people, not even other night elves. "The glaive which you locked in storage for me bears the blades that ended Nefarian, son of Deathwing," Silviel whispered. "Hey!"

Unseen by all, Tirith showed a bit of emotion again and grabbed the younger and smaller elf into a hug, patting Silviel on the head in a manner she'd done a thousand years before when the girl had trapped her first squirrel and offered it to the others to eat. "I'm so proud of you! Your mother must be so proud! To think, of all the heroines in the world, it was one of our own who slayed the leader of that awful place!"

"I made it known to all present at the time who I owed my skills to. I wouldn't be doing what I do were it not for the upbringing you, mom, Priestess Lamynia and all the others gave me," Silviel insisted, almost struggling to speak inside the larger elf's bear hug.

Tirith's heart fluttered at the younger elf's words. "Silviel slayed Nefarian. We all did our parts to give you the best training we could, but the hard work is all yours."

"Silviel _of Serenity_ slayed Nefarian. As much as I resent the name the humans impressed upon our sacred grove, it is how we are known; and it is how I make myself known. Whatever I achieve, it's because of the women of Serenity and nothing else."

"You are so...Silviel, you _are_ Serenity. You embody us." Choked up beyond words, Tirith cupped the thousand year old woman's checks as if she were only a hundred all over again, examining the face that was the spitting image of Caledith. The two of them continued to smile, but hesitated to speak, both knowing what would have to come next. "Tell me about our home."

Silviel let a long, drawn out sigh escape from her lips. A despondent look unbecoming of an elf who still had centuries left to live marked her face beneath the starlight breaking through the upper canopy of the mangrove forest, and Tirith already began to prepare herself for the worst. "Serenity's population has doubled...again," she sighed a second time.

"At sixty someodd persons, yes; and much fewer of us originals."

The younger elf shook her head. "No, big sister...I mean a second time. It was at sixty at the time of your farewell party; there are more than a hundred people residing at our desecrated grove, now."

"By the night..."

"The gnomes are still performing their experiments on the local water table. It's getting lower, and the trees are slowly crawling away, but the outlanders all claim that's a primitive superstition with no basis in this...this...science, they call it. So the walls of the grove expand as we lose our protection from the ancients, and the soil around the edges erodes such that our Druids can no longer grow vegetables naturally. The humans began ripping up the ground and shoving foreign seeds into it, but the yields are low."

"Where does everybody get water fro...oh Elune, please tell me they left the moonwell!"

"They left the moonwell," Silviel confirmed, reassuring her elder that their beliefs had been respected on at least one point. "Cultural sensitivity regulations within the Alliance, apparently," she explained, much to the elder's cynical amusement.

"How is there enough to drink?"

"They drilled their own well-"

"What!"

"-and depleted the water table even more. They're convinced that they can reproduce the health effects of our moonwell in other cities claimed by the faction; something about minerals. We tried to tell them that it has to do with restoring the balance and serving nature, but they try to tie that in to tauren rituals, which means Horde rituals."

"Silviel...Silviel, how can you work alongside people like this?" Tirith's voice was strained in exasperation as she tried to wrap her head around the colonization of their people, all of it taking place before the eyes of the High Priestess.

Only staring out into the swamp, the younger elf fiddled with the sleeves of Tirith's overly long shirt. "What else is there, big sister? Darnassus has submitted itself to the will of Stormwind; and a night elf does not falter in her obedience to her rulers. Whether those of us who still serve are granted cushy posts guarding newbies or sent to the far reaches of the planet is a decision in the hands of the outlanders. There is no other way."

"Well...there is one other way. And it's a path I think I'll traverse soon enough."

For a few seconds, Silviel turned and examined her elder's face. As someone a full thirteen times Silviel's age, Tirith was far more world weary but also far more experienced, and thus that much better at concealing her true feelings - even if the return of mortality awakened emotions in her heart again. Regardless, it didn't take a goblin rocket scientist to decipher what the cryptic sentence meant, and Tirith knew her younger was already beginning to understand the point.

"You're...quitting?" Silviel asked.

Pursing her lips and nodding slowly, Tirith tried to find the right words. "I'm taken care of here; the Alliance is softer than the Sentinels because they're more delicate with their troops. I have what I need, and as you witnessed, the outlanders I serve with are polite enough. This place is a decent place...but it's not our place. I don't belong here; I feel it down to my very bones when I wake up every evening. And Silviel, you know very well from your mother and your oldest sisters that night elves of our generation don't have much time left. We were already aged before immortality; we will die soon. I can feel it coming now. We don't have time left like you do."

For so many of their kind born during immortality, the idea of their elders dying off was terrifying; their kind was never supposed to have faced death except in battle, which was extremely rare since they spent their immortality waiting for an invasion by the Burning Legion that took ten thousand years to arrive. Silviel, on the other hand, was the youngest member of a family containing mostly older members. The revelation didn't shock her, but Tirith could already feel the younger elf's polite disapproval.

"But where will you go? What will you do? We're a part of the Alliance now; land and housing isn't natural anymore, not like before. People 'own' land according to our new faction, and they use this currency thing as a go between when trading, instead of just trading the things they like. They intentionally trap themselves in this cycle of chasing after useless paper and coins and become hostile whenever their system is challenged. You can't just go back to Serenity and sleep on the grass anymore, and not just because they litter on it, either." Pausing momentarily, Silviel turned on the branch to face Tirith, who had now become the one staring out into the swamp. "You know mom will always make space for you, but you'll go crazy if you retire. She already drives us crazy whenever we visit."

"Look, everything you're mentioning right now, I'm already aware of; trust me, as I have to consider this every single day," Tirith explained, feeling a surprising lack of stress when confessing to her plight out loud. It felt quite liberating, actually. "I don't have any surviving family of my own; not after the Sundering. Serenity was my only family, and I don't want to burden any of you; nor do your mom and I need to be driving each other up the wall." Her joke lightened Silviel's gradually bluing mood somewhat, and helped her to be realistic about her life situation. "The solution is something I still need to work out. I've been offered a promotion by the Alliance-"

"People a fraction of your age offering you-"

"-a promotion. Yes, that was my reaction as well. But I've been looking into the matter, and I believe that if I decline, there are ways that can work to my advantage. If I can land a pension, I can rent a place, even if I need a roommate, and figure out a civilian job from there."

"And you're comfortable with that?"

"When you're my age, comfort no longer matters. I need a solution, and once I can become stable, I can figure out the next step from there. I don't have millennia ahead of me to just plan out every action anymore. Others from those of us born pre Sundering have struck out on their own; your oldest sister is an example."

"Yeah...Cioniel is doing as well as one could expect, I suppose," Silviel conceded. "Better than others."

A long, feral eyebrow shot up. "What happened?" Tirith asked, worried. When Silviel didn't answer, that sense of worry increased. "Woman, tell me what happened," she ordered her younger.

After a measure of hesitation and literal, physical prodding on the part of Tirith, Silviel fessed up. "Isurith went missing," she said sadly. "She took a flight to Theramore and was accused of soliciting a decorated barrow den guard-"

"Lies!" Tirith nearly screamed, anger flowing throughout her veins with almost no escalation at the suggestion of impropriety on the part of any of the women of Serenity. Though Silviel would naturally understand that the anger wasn't directed at her, the younger elf did flinch as she continued speaking.

"-who claimed that she accosted him and harassed his outlander friends with racial slurs."

"No! No, that's not true! Not Isurith!"

"I don't believe it either, calm down," Silviel protested. "I'm just telling you, she disappeared after the incident and her medal of valor from the Silverwing was found for sale in the hands of an outlander associated with a brothel there. Either way, she's missing, and her sister has been bedridden for weeks. Her uncle wrote to every contact he could, but nobody can find her, or Gwynn for that matter; she disappeared shortly after the...incident with Maya."

Denial took over and Tirith tried to brush the hurtful news aside. The circumstances under which Maya had been demoted from captain to private were still poorly understood and subject to much speculation. To hear that two more of the Serenity originals had disappeared from the social circle was simply overwhelming. "Isurith and Gwynneth were best friends; perhaps they have something planned. Maybe they need to find themselves, like Cio. Or Maya, may Elune be with her," Tirith replied, working to suppress the mix of anger and sadness in her system.

"Yeah, maybe... I guess." Silviel's voice trailed off and she shook her head rapidly as if trying to shake the thoughts away. "Celonia is still serving actively in Winterspring. There's talk of Darnassus confirming that she's the oldest living Kaldorei on Azeroth, and she's still patrolling the highways out in the cold."

The insinuation wasn't lost on Tirith, and she reflected on how she would fare in colder weather. "My mind isn't made up yet, woman; I'm still weighing my options. I'm thrilled to hear that Celonia is faring so well; we all worried that she'd be too fragile for active duty. She spent the entire Long Vigil inside the grove with the softer sisters. But she is not me."

"I know...I know. And whatever you're considering, based on your own situation, I will continue to pray for you. And that means a lot, because I don't usually pray."

"Silviel, that's not funny," Tirith scolded her, conservatism spiking inside of her. "You make sure you do for yourself and your mom and blood sisters, too."

Laughing lightly and patting Tirith's arm, Silviel loosened up and leaned her head on Tirith's shoulder. "I promise, big sister." Her tone was a mixture of seriousness and humor, all of it affected by the big yawn that escaped from her mouth.

"Don't forget the White Lady when you're on the warpath."

Out of nowhere, Silviel changed the subject. "I bought you an easel," she chuckled, letting her eyelids hang closed.

"You...Silviel! Really! Oh, you...Silviel, don't forget to pray!"

"You're welcome," the younger elf yawned again. "Can I take just a small nap and then we leave the scolding for later?"

Sensing the attempt of Serenity's best representative to dodge the issue of her occasional laxity, Tirith resolved to do her best to just enjoy the visit and leave the exhortation for written letters. "I'm going to take that easel and paint a picture of you kneeling before Priestess Lamynia and being cleansed of your wickedness," she tried to tease, though Silviel's lids had already closed by that time.

The night was still young, but Silviel had been on the trail alongside the rest of her convoy for much of the day. There was time for her to sleep on Tirith as they sat on the branch; soon enough, Silviel would be on the march again as the convoy continued south to establish an Alliance consulate in the neutral city of Booty Bay; the woman needed the rest more than Tirith did, and they'd both do their best to make up for it by sleeping as little as possible until the convoy finally left. A short nap was fine.

Time ticked by in the swamp, and Tirith finally had a spare moment away from anyone who was awake to look upward. The stars shone down on her, sending the greetings of fallen heroines of the past as she counted them. Inside her mind, the words of the strange outlander who had reached out to her when she was cornered in the forest echoed in her mind.

"Goddess, protect Celonia...Maya...everybody. Even Gwynn," Tirith spoke silently toward the dark sky. "I'm trying...by the night, I'm trying to find my place in this brave new world. All I can ask is guidance."

The rest of Silviel's visit was uneventful yet also wonderful and rejuvenating. Most of their discussions were light beyond that point, and the painting of the younger elf kneeling before their grove's priestess did materialize. By the end of the visit, Tirith's mind had been made up; putting the plan into action at Stormwind was another matter.


	12. May 15, year 24

_May 15, year 24_

The long passenger wagon bumped on the dirt road that the humans referred to as a highway, once again thwarting Tirith's attempt to sleep that day. It would have been much faster to fly - if much more expensive - but more exhausting, she'd expected. A wagon had a driver, and was a relatively safe enclosure when traveling; since all the ground transportation running through Duskwood and up into Ellwynd Forest operated during the daylight hours only, it seemed like a reasonable plan to both reach her destination and catch some shuteye at the same time.

That plan was quickly foiled not only by the rickety wheels of the wagon, but also by the poor, bumpy roads. Since humans were far from being in balance with the natural environment around them, their arcane magi possessed no means of growing roads naturally. Laborers hacked into the flesh of the planet, ripped out the grass and lined their roads with the corpses of murdered trees. For the ancient night elf sentinel, the main road through Ellwynd was even more unnerving than all of Duskwood had been.

The incessant chatter of the five other people who had chosen to travel to Stormwind via ground route didn't help Tirith's attempts to sleep, either. At Duskwood, she'd managed to sleep for an entire day and much of the evening in order to prepare for her departure. The trip on a rented horse from Camp Freedom into the region that the humans viewed with such alarm took her a full evening, night and part of the morning, and her heavy workhorse had been greatly taxed by the trip, but she had her reasons for pushing so hard initially. Her entire leave would only last for six days, and even then she had to sacrifice her next few weekends after returning as well as other privileges; all of that had to be arranged with the assistance of both Silviel as well as Soraya, her fellow sentinel she'd met three months ago, who both called in favors in order to have Marge's opposition to Tirith taking an early leave of absence squashed. Troops stationed in remote locations like Camp Freedom were entitled to two separate six day breaks per year; taking one of those breaks early would never have worked out had the camp commander had her way.

The workhorse didn't mind once Tirith brushed its mane herself and fed it carrots by hand, though, and she had progressed at an incredible rate; just over a day's journey from northern Stranglethorn Vale into Duskwood, perhaps half a day from Duskwood to the edge of Ellwynd on her own, and then - _supposedly_ \- less than a day from the border to Stormwind via a wagon pulled by two workhorses.

That is, of course, if the three gnomes and two humans that were riding in the back of the wagon with her wouldn't quit asking the drivers to stop evey half an hour for reasons that didn't concern her or the trip.

"Cabby! Cabby, please," a white haired gnome hauling engineering tools urgently asked the driver despite having been told the man's name multiple times. "Could we stop for a moment?" the gnome asked the driver - notably without asking Tirith or the two drivers themselves if they minded yet another delay.

"This is the third time since we left Goldshire; we're already behind schedule," the active driver, an ageing dwarf who appeared a little on the heavy side, replied. His partner, a youngish looking human (though they were all young to Tirith) had managed to nod off.

As if he weren't even listening, the gnome began to set up the odd contraption their people referred to as a camera. Standing on stilts and consisting of a large black box and an upside down shovel containing a powder which couldn't possibly be healthy to inhale, the devices were like mirrors that preserved the reflections they showed. The preservation of a reflection seemed wrong to Tirith in a way she couldn't describe, and she had never allowed anyone to perform the process on her reflection before - the result being called a photograph and bearing a small part of the person depicted in it. She didn't have evidence that it was dangerous to the balance or someone's life essence, but she felt convinced.

"Alright guys, get ready for this," the gnomish engineer announced as he tried to stabalize the contraption in the back of the wagon. The walls on the sides were far too high for him to see over, and he had to stand on top of his luggage - precariously close to a human woman in her forties who was at risk of having the camera fall on her if the wagon hit a bump in the road. The gnome didn't seem to care and the human seemed used to the lack of personal space. "Cabby, right here!" the annoying little engineer demanded.

Sighing heavily, the dwarven driver brought the workhorses to a stop, much to the animals' consternation. Two of the other passengers - a pink haired gnome wearing a dress twice as long as was practical for her and a human dressed like a jester - disembarked and ran toward a seemingly random birch tree just off the dirt highway and struck ridiculous looking poses.

"Alright, just one second...just one second," the engineer yelled far too loudly as he fiddled with the camera, and Tirith could sense the irritation caused to the wildlife in the area. "Just one second...just one second...hold on...here it comes...just one minute...one minute...okay, almost there...just one minute...here we go..."

The human woman and her companion, a rather cantankerous looking gnome wearing a pointy hat, didn't appear to mind the stop and the loss of more time. "He changes his damn glasses more than he changes his damn shirt," the little man wearing a pointy hat grumbled in an unusually gruff voice. "Why doesn't he just buy a new shirt for once in his life?"

"Yes, I know, his last attempt at building the bridge failed miserably," the human woman replied. The conversation was absolutely incomprehensible to Tirith based on the lack of context due to her own sleepiness, and she wished they would all just stop talking.

"Just a few minutes...just a few minutes...just a few minutes...almost there..."

"I can't believe he tried to secure that winch beneath the bridge without changing his damn shirt. Doesn't make any sense."

"Okay...just a few minutes...almost there...just a few minutes..."

"And did you see his attempt at a pre-Thalassian style oil color? I mean, I've never seen such atrocious work passed off as art."

No longer caring for propriety or for appearing polite even in the face of such annoyances, Tirith scooted over toward the far corner of the wagon behind the sleeping driver, leaned against the wall of the carriage in the back and tightened the hood of her cloak around her head. The ear holes common to elven gear allowed to much sound to escape inside, and she even went as far as pulling the hood back to slip her ears inside. It was a breach of elven rules of fashion that had been established since their pact with nature, but those rules mattered little when she was surrounded by such individuals.

Nobody even seemed to notice and soon enough, the chatter she could hear from the outside of her hood died down and she felt the vibrations of the ridiculous posers re entering the wagon, minus a portion of their souls. Soon enough, the wagon shook as the workhorses accelerated to a decent trot and they began to cover more ground once more.

Because Tirith didn't quite remember where they were, she didn't bother opening the hood of her cloak again. Despite her long life - or perhaps because of it - she was a creature of habit. She knew every single ditch and hill in northern Kalimdor, but that was only because she'd passed them all countless times; the road from Goldshire to Stormwind, however, was unknown territory for her. Only one time had she traversed this highway, and it was when she had first been sent to Camp Freedom as part of the shared troop rotation between her people and the other races of the Alliance nine months before.

Being as old as Tirith was, she was very well used to long treks through the woods. The Long Vigil had lasted ten thousand years, and although she had been blessed by the High Priestess to live in a small grove of only twenty five, there was still plenty of time for troop rotation and temporary assignments abroad during those millennia. Tirith had taken part in patrols in sabre back that lasted for decades at a time; one patrol in particular, early during the Vigil when night elven villages were still trying their best to spread hand copied maps, local histories and catalogues of local herbs among themselves, took her from Serenity all the way down to the southern shores of the continent in Tanaris and back. The patrol took her to nearly every part of Kalimdor settled by night elves and lasted more than sixty years - the longest she'd ever undertaken though still an insignificant and nearly meaningless amount of time given the fact that they all thought they would live forever.

This trek was different, however; it was short, and she'd only been there one time. Although she recognized the corrupted yet still beautiful balance of nature everywhere, she couldn't remember where they were going and wouldn't be able to find her own way to the Alliance capitol city were she to just ditch the wagon.

Remembering her time patrolling Kalimdor alongside her shield sisters during her immortality didn't help her to relax on the trip, either. Tirith's heart hurt so much that even the annoying chatter and bumps in the road faded away. The younger lived races often cried when bidding farewell to friends they'd known for only a decade or two; Tirith didn't cry when Serenity received a missive signed by the regional commander in their province listing herself, Celonia, Silviel and Madrieda as individuals who would be sent abroad as a sign of goodwill to their new faction, but she felt the closest to breaking down as someone as stoic and ancient as her could be. She loved those women; every single one of them.

Well, maybe not Gwynneth, but the others were more than just replacements for Tirith's family after she found herself the sole surviving member of her branch of the Nightshade family after the War of the Ancients. She spent more time with them, an amount of time unimaginable to anyone other than their people, unimaginable even to the mere thousand year olds like Silviel. Now, she'd been ripped away from all that she knew, all that she loved, her entire world for so long...no wonder she found that, after ten millennia of an emotionless, nearly feral state, she was crying almost every other week over something. The emotions awoken by news that her people would age normally and that she would do so apart from her sacred grove was too much to bear-

"We're here, lass," the rotund driver of the wagon said to Tirith, sending her a jolt as she felt the sensation of falling for a split second.

"Huh...what?"

Pulling the hood off of her head, she was met by the stench of human run stables and chained, trapped steeds prevented from roaming free. The annoying passengers and their luggage were gone, as were the workhorses. The younger driver helped the older one descend from the front cab of the wagon, and Tirith realized she was just outside the high stone walls of Stormwind and surrounded by merchant, travelers and locals speaking Common in numerous different accents. Disoriented but at least shielded from the sunlight by the trees overhead, she stretched and disembarked herself before catching up to the two drivers.

"Thank you for transporting us as swiftly as you could," she told the two men as they slowly hobbled over to some sort of a station for the numerous wagon and carriage drivers for hire.

The dwarf appeared to have a knee problem and walked slowly due to his weight problem, and his human codriver appeared more focused on helping him to the station than speaking to a customer. "Any time, lass; ye can always find the best transportation here," the old dwarf answered as the two men reached a bench outside the station office.

"I have a question, if you don't mind; this is only my second time in the city."

"Sure, anything, lass. We're always glad te help." The younger driver sat with his arms crossed and still looked tired; perhaps during her own nap, he'd been awoken by the other passengers again.

"I need to find a certain office here for military personnel. I don't have much time but once I can find it, my affair will not require much time to handle."

"Alright then, what's the place called?"

Pulling the summons that Soraya had formally written up for her from her duffel bag, Tirith read out the address of the destination her new friend had sent to her. "Personnel deployment attaché, frontier exploration and defense section, staff relations, central military command," Tirith read off, waiting for one of the two men to hear something they recognized. Because she certainly didn't, and had a poor idea of where exactly Soraya was trying to direct her.

The sleepy human driver tilted his head up, obviously hearing words he recognized. "My cousin is a guard at the attaché's office," the young man spoke up. "Sounds like you have contract related issues to sort out."

"Yes, exactly. Do you know how to get there?"

"Yeah, he's my cousin; I've been there. I can even draw you a map-" At the sound of a grunt of disapproval from the old dwarf, the human turned to see his mentor glaring at him and fell silent for a moment. "Uh...I guess I could walk you there and help you gain admittance inside," the human corrected himself.

Tirith raised one of her long eyebrows, much to the young man's bemusement. "Isn't admittance open for military personnel?" she asked.

"No, not for the rank and file. Not unless you know somebody. My cousin can get you in if he's on duty, though."

At first, Tirith considered launching into her speech about helping her not being obligatory on the young man. Elven mores of hospitality and graciousness simply didn't function in the cities of the younger lived races, however; she'd learned that from experience. Eschewing a show of humility, she jumped at the opportunity for assistance and resolved to scold herself for her neediness in private later. "Really, that would help me so much if you could do that; I've traveled from Stranglethorn and I don't have a lot of time to spend here."

"Anythin for a quiet passenger," the dwarf laughed. "Our station here owns a stake in our own gryphon roost te the east; it's jest a fifteen minute walk or so. If ye need te return te Stranglethorn quickly, we cen do thet for ye."

Obviously, the man was advertising for the company, but if Tirith had to pay her way back no matter what then it made sense to stick with people she knew took their work seriously. "I need to leave tomorrow; will your station's roost have gryphons available that can find their way back to Camp Freedom?" the night elf asked.

"Yep, that we do; Camp Freedom's flight point is operational and in touch weth ours. Ye can take any of the strongest and most endurable flyers around." The man's accent was difficult to understand, but he seemed honest enough since there was money to be made, and Tirith quickly jotted down flight times and left her name with him to hand in to the station.

Once arrangements for her return had already been made, she and the young human moved to enter the city proper. The boy seemed rather tired and did say much, which was fine by Tirith; if he only wished to lead her to the location in question and then leave, all the better. The two of them passed the muddy area marked by a number of competing companies offering chartered wagons, rented mounts, horseshoe changing and a number of services targeting travelers and approached what appeared to be the main gates of Stormwind. Tirith didn't recognize them and assumed that she must have exited from a different gate the last time she was in the city. Throngs of people moved in and out of the gate, and a sizeable contingent of armored human soldiers stood watch and stopped passersby seemingly at random.

From the start, the whole place began to get on her nerves.

"You, stop," one of the guards told Tirith rather sternly from three or four yards away. There was still a good amount of distance between them in addition to more people passing by, and he wouldn't possibly be able to ask her for anything at such a distance. "Need to see some ID," he said in the same impolite voice, using a beckoning gesture that was considered offensive in the culture of elves but which was probably among his people.

Unsure of whether to search for her personal documents first or to move to a more reasonable distance, Tirith looked at her human companion for guidance. When the boy moved forward and leaned against the stone wall of the massive entryway, she understood both that it was alright for her to move closer and that the guard only wanted to see identification from her.

Opening her duffle bag as she stepped closer, she tried to sift through the few belongings she'd brought along with her. Her task was made more difficult by the fact that people tended to crowd around one another in the cities of the outlanders, and numerous shorter people continuously bumped into her bag and almost into her, none of them seeming to be bothered by the fact.

Underneath her packaged dry rations, she found the thick envelope containing her identification papers, though not quickly enough for the guard's liking.

"Come on lady, keep the line moving!"

Only slightly bothered, she tried to remind herself that she was in Stormwind for a singular purpose and worked not to respond in kind. "I found it. Here, take it," she replied dryly while handing the detested document bearing blue and gold rather than silver and purple.

The guard took it rather roughly in his gauntleted hand, crumpling the most important piece of paper she had. After giving it only a cursory glance, he promptly handed it back to her. "Move along. You, stop!" He was already pointing at another person - the only other night elf in the area, Tirith noticed - by the time Tirith had sealed her identification papers back in her duffel bag. The human lad who had been leading her continued, and they both went on their way in silence.

Inside, the city was much as she remembered it. Of the handful of other night elves she'd met during the previous nine months, only the younger ones were impressed by the stone cities built by the humans. For her generation, the highborne cities were more impressive and lacked the obvious poverty, crime and poor sanitation. Stormwind held very little for her other than a reminder of how far her people had fallen if they found themselves outclassed and relegated to a minor race within the faction by the alliance of human nations.

Once they began winding in and out of crowded streets that were poorly labeled - some of the more narrow ones bearing no names at all - she became rather thankful that the young man had agreed to show her the way. She didn't have a particularly long amount of time to spend in the city, and the pressure to find the office in question mounted as she realized that the day had drifted into the afternoon time. Despite the numerous disruptions to her sleep schedule that she'd endured since her exploits in that part of the world, her now normally ageing body still dealt with the changes poorly and she found herself disoriented. The young human maintained a brisk pace and took no issue with the prospect of bumping in to other people; indeed, few of the denizens did. Pushing her own cultural mores aside, Tirith gripped the strap of her duffel bag, tucked her elbows in to her sides and pressed forward, wincing at all the unnecessary contact with the bodies of other people and nearly knocking a few of the locals over due to her excessive height.

Eventually, the young human slowed down and Tirith noticed a drab government building on a side road that was small but paved in cobblestone. A number of humans and dwarves sat on benches and laughed rather loudly as they spoke in groups; she could tell immediately that they were soldiers based on their body language. The door to the building hung open and she could spy several queues of people waiting at different little windows behind the armed guard manning the door.

Before she had time to ask questions, the boy waved to the armed guard, catching the slightly older human's attention.

"Hey Gus, how's it going?" the boy asked a little too loudly.

The guard remained stoic at his post, obviously working hard to tone down his reaction to his cousin. "On duty; can't chat," the guard replied before looking Tirith over. "Friend needs to get inside?"

"Yep, she's working in frontier explorers or whatever and needs to see the staff relations lady."

"You owe me for this." The guard stepped aside, and immediately found himself physically barring two other humans who attempted to rush past Tirith and push their way inside. "You two, sit down until you're called to wait in line! You, ma'am, third line from the right side."

"Hey, we were here first!" cried one of the two human soldiers indignantly.

"You enter when you're called, sit down or you'll get called next week," the guard shouted back at the man in a ludicrous, faked baritone voice that didn't sound natural.

"Ignore them," the human boy whispered to Tirith while reaching around her to point inside. "Just get in line and they'll help you at the front; see you at the roost tomorrow."

The lad disappeared before she had a time to properly thank him, and when a dwarven soldier joined the complaining troops being barred from entry, Tirith decided to just get in line. What the boy had done for her was most likely a form of nepotism, which went against what her people believed in. However, considering how out of her element she felt, she justified acceptance of nepotism on her part by reminding herself that she had literally no idea where to go or what to do otherwise; she didn't even know who to talk to in order to get her name on the list outside to simply be called inside and stand in line.

In fact, as she stood in line in front of a dwarven paladin wearing his armor indoors for no good reason and behind what she surmised might be a human (she wasn't sure) with excruciatingly severe body odor, Tirith realized that she hadn't planned how exactly to explain her case. Lucky for her, the line moved at an incredibly slow rate and the overly noisy waiting room at the office of the personnel deployment attaché was so utterly chaotic that nobody tried to stop her in order to sell her something or beg like so many had done out in the streets.

Over the course of an hour and forty minutes that she counted exactly, she managed to formulate her monologue explaining her professional decision lest she be challenged by some Alliance official accusing her of dereliction of duty or another bogus charge. Six people were ahead of her, and the patience of the night elf was tried. During the Long Vigil, she and her shield sisters often waited for years stalking invading harpies and demonic remnants before they struck. That hour and forty minute period inside the office, however, felt maddening; it was waiting without any purpose other than accommodation of inefficient and unmotivated bureaucrats. By the time she reached the front of the line, she'd recounted her monologue in her head fourteen times, observed every possibly angle from which she'd need to attack were the office invaded by kobolds and done the math in her head for how much time she'd have to rest at Camp Freedom before her next shift started, all while also counting out the minutes. Usually, she despised such overthinking when it wasn't necessary; after tasting the reality of human bureaucracy, however, it seemed as worthy a passtime at any other.

The stench of arcane magic threw her off balance when she reached the front of the line, however, and found a real, live, full blooded high elf staring at her from behind the glass.

"Can I help you?" the Queldorei mage asked plainly while sending her a rather acrimonious glare.

Refusing to sink to the level of a person whose lifestyle she viewed as blasphemy, Tirith steeled her nerve and tightened her jaw. "I am Sentinel...er...Corporal Tirith Nightshade, frontier defense personnel number six three four five four, currently stationed at Camp Freedom. I'm here regarding a proposed promotion in rank due to valor on the battlefield."

Rolling his eyes disrespectfully, the high elf mage turned to an overworked dwarven assistant. "Get the file for all personnel at Camp Freedom in northern Stranglethorn, please," he asked the dwarf woman rather politely. Turning back to Tirith, he managed to put on his best uncurteous scowl again. "Acceleration of a promotion process requires the express endorsement of your commanding officer, so if you don't have it then you'll have to simply leave Stormwind and go back to where-"

"Decline of a promotion."

At first the mage appeared angry that he'd been cut off, but after a few seconds of silence his knit brow arched in confusion. "You want to...decline your promotion in rank?"

"Yes. I would like to file for a decline of my promotion as well as a retirement one year from now."

Glowing light blue eyes reminiscent of the zombies of the Scourge flickered as the high elf blinked at her. Confusion was replaced with a very faint, hidden hostility that she ignored. "If you file for retirement within a year after having served for less than a year, then you will not be eligible for your pension," he nearly whispered at her, a sense of victory in his voice as he seemed to think he'd found a way to foil the life choices of some random Kaldorei.

Unfortunately, he was speaking to someone who had done her homework. "Unless I decline a promotion while filing for retirement after less than a year of service, due to Alliance regulations in response to the imbalance of officers versus unenlisted recruits," she whispered right back, ducking her head down to come at eye level. "You do know of the regulations regarding staff relations...don't you?" Making an enemy for life since he wanted to be that way, she ensured that she didn't blink at all during the staring contest that ensued.

Perhaps subconsciously, the mage began speaking in Thalassian rather than Common. The vocabulary was close enough to that of Darnassian for the two to be mutually intelligible, as long as they both spoke slowly. "You must fill out the appropriate forms for both processes if you intend to abandon your post and return to your precious colonized continent, tree dweller," he told her in an eerily calm voice as he sat back in his high chair, ending the staring contest. The dwarven assistant handed him a thick stack of files marked for Camp Freedom, which he accepted and sifted through without even needing to look. "Your forms will need to be sent back to that overgrown seaweed your people refer to as a capitol for processing; that will take weeks. Then it will be returned here - to the actual seat of power - for approval. So your retirement will not begin in exactly one year from now. Consider yourself warned."

"How's Quel'thalas doing these days?" Tirith asked out loud in Common as she snatched the forms from him.

Both the high elf and a handful of people standing nearby gasped, though the cantankerous gnome wearing a pointy hat from the wagon earlier - who was clearly a civilian and had no real business being there - laughed in his unusually gruff voice. For sure the mage would force Tirith to wait in line all over again just to hand the forms back rather than simply accepting them around the side of his window, which would cost him only three seconds anyway. Well worth it, Tirith thought as she sat down on a bench and began scribbling. Putting an antagonistic sun worshipper in his place more than made up for the possible other hour and forty minutes she'd have to wait to hand her forms in.

* * *

Night had already fallen by the time Tirith found her way to the only district in the Alliance capitol that was remotely what she'd consider an area of greenery. After what had turned into a two hour wait in line, she'd ended up complaining to the personnel attaché himself when the high elf rejected her forms and ran out behind the building for an unannounced break. No matter; she'd achieved her goal on time, and would finally be able to breathe easier knowing that she'd acted on the decision she'd made.

Within the garden district of Stormwind, she found a modest number of her own kind intermingling with a larger number of trendy humans and gnomes who enjoyed pretending to understand nature. Like the night elves, they made a habit of walking barefoot on the few areas of the city's roads that weren't filthy, but had the odd habit of not removing all their body hair. As much as Tirith had come to accept her outlander acquaintances at Camp Freedom, her racial tolerance fell apart on this point; elves possessed no body hair at all, and why anyone from the younger races would choose to leave it was beyond her. Their tendency to burn foul smelling herbs and then inhale the fumes irritated her to no end as well, and she found herself unable to socialize with most of her fellow Kaldorei in peace due to the higher number of the hip humans and gnomes.

Not that she was in great need. She would have preferred to network and socialize with other night elves given that she wouldn't be returning to Stormwind for a while, but Soraya and Pontus were enough. True to the fast gossip of any racial minority, the moment Tirith had entered Stormwind half of the city's night elves knew and passed on her description, and she found that both she and Soraya were searching for each other at the same time.

The three of them sat in the middle of an open grassy area in the middle of the city. High stone walls still surrounded them, and they huddled beneath a tree as far from any of the crudely constructed buildings as they could. True to conservative tradition, Pontus and the two women sat with their backs to each other. Were they back in Kalimdor he might have been too shy to be seen associating with women who weren't his family members, but when abroad a number of the stricter old traditions had to be left aside.

He was the first to shift after Tirith had explained her experience at the office of the attaché and her short term decision. "You're absolutely sure that retirement is what you want?" he asked politely while stargazing with them.

"Absolutely sure," Tirith replied without hesitation. "In just over a year, my duty to our leaders will be finished. Our duty to nature already ended three years ago; we're mortals now. Protection of the balance is a task to be shared by all the races who are now our equals. I have no sense of obligation to continue; you youngbloods can watch over the planet just fine."

"You know, not all of us are youngbloods; I was born just after the Sundering," Pontus countered respectfully. "But these younger races need our guidance so they do not repeat our mistakes. It is my hope that I can still contribute to that protection."

"Goddess, light your path; but that is not for me. I've done enough. I'm tired, mentally. And I've given up too much to spend my last few years relegated to a low level officer serving at a podunk jungle camp under people who have no comprehension of my experience."

"You have the right to take control of your life now that we're no longer bound in servitude, big sister; all night elves are free to live where they want to and only patrol if they want to," Soraya said after a lull in the conversation. Her voice was laced with concern and Tirith already knew what was coming. "But, you know the new laws...land is apportioned. It costs money. Even the Cenarion Circle charges money for growing people houses now."

"I voted against that decision, by the way," Pontus added in his own defense.

"And your village has been changed forever, based on what you told me. I don't imagine you'll want to go back."

"You're correct. I can't go back now; not yet. I'd like to visit the location before I pass on, but we spent the Vigil...we spent it there together, when we were given the honor of that duty. My shield sisters have scattered, either by force like me or emigration, like most of them; like most people from the smaller towns in general. Movement, transportation, communication...I've seen more change in these three years than I did in the previous three thousand." Flattened by the weight of how much had been taken away from her without input on her part, Tirith sighed and tried desperately to find those stars above. "Serenity Grove is not my home. Not anymore. I don't want to stay at that tiny camp, but I won't be returning to Serenity either."

"Where wil you go, big sister? What will you do? Your pension will be enough to live a life of humility and moderation, but how can...I'm so sorry, but what will you do with yourself?"

"Well-"

True to her younger age when compared to the two other elves, Soraya turned to face Tirith fully and cut her off. "You can stay with me. It isn't Kalimdor, but it will give you time to figure out where to go from there," the younger elf suggested.

"Soraya, you make me feel shy...and I thank you for the offer. But that is a year off, or a little more than a year to be exact. A lot can happen during that time. And hopefully, the goddess will grant me many nights to look to the heroines of the past above and seek guidance."

"Yeah...I guess so," Soraya conceded in an almost defeated tone. "But promise that before you do anything, you'll come stay with me for a while."

"I will, little sister; I will. Something tells me I will need some time to decide where to go next."

The three of them continued stargazing for a long time. At one point Tirith fell asleep, her internal clock still maladjusted from all the travel. Her two friends didn't move from their spot until she awoke in the wee hours of the morning; a human guard informed them that sitting on the grass was fine but that sleeping on it violated the city's attempt to 'combat its homeless problem' or some such rubbish. By the time her sleepy eyed friends escorted her to the gryphon roost in the morning, she honestly preferred to return to Camp Freedom and escape the choking confines of the stone walls for a while.


	13. July 3, year 24, A

_July 3, year 24_

The sun's rays just barely broke out above the canopy, painting the tops of the trees in a gorgeous orange color. The clearing above Camp Freedom remained dark as night, creating an interesting blue-black circle lined by orange at the bottom. Countless times, Tirith had viewed such scenes on her own continent. For the first time, she was able to appreciate the beauty even when so far from home.

She yawned at the same time Khadijah did, both of them weary for different reasons. Technically, Tirith was still on duty for her night shift guarding the front gate; Khadijah had just woken up, and the cook at the settlement's only canteen hadn't boiled and prepared coffee yet. Still, the two women sat as they have a number of times before. Ever since Tirith began to open up to the human priestess, their early morning chats had become something of a ritual several times a week. And those chats had started, of course, only when Tirith finally felt she had some semblance of a plan for herself in roughly a year's time.

That morning, of course, was the first time she'd spoken frankly about her plans. For sure Marge had been informed of Tirith's rejection of a promotion and application for retirement, but apparently hadn't mentioned anything to the others; Khadijah was rather shocked.

"This is...certainly some news," the human said after clearing her throat and pausing for some time.

"Yeah..." Tirith answered, watching the stars and hoping to witness the very last of their light fade into morning. It had almost become a little game she played by herself on some mornings, and she almost drifted away from the conversation. "I just received confirmation that by papers have been returned to Stormwind and approved. It took a month and a half, but it's finally done. I'll be finished and on pension in less than a year."

"You know, you're still the most able bodied person here, Tirith. Even William was joking about how he couldn't keep up with you when you guys all caught those pickpockets running down the highway."

"I feel capable, physically. My body is not what it was just a few years ago, but I don't feel old in the sense that I hear actual old people complaining about. I'm just tired, is all. My people are..." Realizing the disparities in their age, Tirith decided that giving a number might seem beyond belief for the human. Instead she settled for vague terms, which were sufficient for evoking meaning. "My people live a very long time; and I patrolled our forests for a period of time much longer than you can imagine."

"Yes, I've heard."

"And everyone reaches their limit, eventually. I no longer have anything to prove, and the cooperation between the peoples of the world means that I'm not urgently needed; there will be others to fill the gap." Inhaling deeply, she reveled in the surest, clearest gut instinct she'd experienced since being cornered in a tree by tigers a third of a year before. "I'm ready to be a civilian again."

From the corner of her eye, Tirith noticed Khadijah examine the triple blades of her glaive in awe. As a priestess, the Khadijah likely knew little of armed combat. "You're absolutely sure that you won't get, you know, bored?"

"I might, at first. But that's just one of life's hurdles; I'll need to discover a new reason for getting up in the morning. And I'm sure there are reasons other than risking my life and possibly ending that of others," Tirith explained as a wry grin made its way across her face. She began to examine her friend's light robes and shawl, signifying her as a woman of the cloth. Although Tirith had become more open with Khadijah in particular, she avoided asking or answering personal questions and focused on current events around the camp instead. On that morning, she felt just comfortable enough to press a little further. "Khadijah, why are you out here? In a place like this? There are other healers; you're talented enough to earn a job at any infirmary within the safety of a walled city."

At the first personal question the night elf had ever asked her, Khadijah's eyes lit up. "Oh! Well, I've been with the clerical orders embedded at Alliance camps since I was a child. My brother and I, we lost our parents young, but they had serve our specific...branch, you could say, or maybe department - no, branch - of the clerical order for a long time. So we were always well fed, well educated and kept safe, but on the condition that we'd be tied to the order. So I served for a period of time and, when that was finished, I stayed on; I go wherever the Light takes me, and that's usually in remote areas where healers are in short supply."

"And your brother too, I guess?"

For once it was the human who became a bit closed off about personal matters. "Barghash is...different," she said after a bit of hesitation. "He went off on his own path. But I believe he will return, some day."

"That's a unique name, as is yours; I take it that you're not from Ellwynd Forest."

"Ha! No, a bit further away. Our parents aren't sure exactly, but the family legend is that we were from your continent, from Uldum, but long after the wars between your people and the silithids had ended, and we received the Curse of the Flesh like other Titan constructs sailed away to Kul Tiras, which is why humans from that archipelago are darker skinned."

Despite Tirith's respect for the priestess, she pursed her lips to avoid contradicting the woman's family myth. Tirith had lived all of that; she might have resided in the northern half of the continent, but she lived through that time. Had there been humans on Kalimdor, she certainly would have known. Absurdity of the claim aside, she chose politeness for the sake of her new friend. "Interesting" was the only word she could reply with.

The rather coy look on Khadijah's face signaled a push back in terms of personal questions. "Okay, so now it's my turn," the human stated in a mock formal tone.

"Oh, now I'm in trouble."

"No, no, it's okay!" Khadijah laughed out loud. "Do you have any kids? Or any family to go to once you retire? You mentioned once that your village changed, which I take it means that you won't go back."

Tirith had to avoid snorting in surprise at how perceptive the diminutive human really was; she'd never told the woman anything about whether she'd return to Serenity or not, and yet there she was drawing conclusions about Tirith. And the fact that they were correct conclusions made it seem all the more invasive. She couldn't blame Khadijah or even feel justifiably upset, but her elven sense of propriety was thrown off balance.

"What? Well, no," she replied despite being off guard, working to repress memories of her son's singing voice. "I've been married twice; divorced from my first husband and...well, no, I'm not married-"

"Hey, relax. You don't have to answer if it's too private for you," Khadijah assured her while placing a hand on her arm. "It was just a friendly gesture."

"Thanks, Khadijah...maybe it's just too late at day for me to answer the personal inquiries," Tirith laughed, a genuine, deep laugh. The coffee colored human had a certain charm that put the night elf at ease and removed any sense of unease even when discussing topics most elves considered private.

A cheery whistle saved Tirith from any further inquiries into her past as William strolled over to the front gate, where he'd take over the post after just a few minutes. The two dwarven guards would join the bisque colored human after an hour or so, granting the priestess and the knight a period of time unobserved that Tirith had no intentions of interrupting.

Already suited in his armor, William looked rather alert and didn't at all seem like he'd woken up a mere half hour before, which was most likely what he did. "Good morning, ladies; beautiful day out, isn't it?" he asked sincerely and without a hint of pretense.

"That it is," Tirith replied when she noticed Khadijah remaining coyly silent. "Though for me, it isn't a time to rise and shine."

"I get it; you're already prepared to ditch us for a nice, warm bed, aren't you?" the knight joked.

"Huh? No, it's not like...oh, you're making a joke, aren't you?"

"Me? No, never!"

"Yes, of course," Khadijah added, jumping in to the conversation with an equal amount of friendly sarcasm in her voice.

All three of them laughed; it was something Tirith would never have shown any of them months ago when faced by the prospect of living out the rest of her life next to them. Yet now that she knew she'd be leaving them, she suddenly found herself opening up around them much more easily. How ironic, she mused internally as the trio continued to joke lightly before parting ways.

Irony wasn't the correct word for when Tirith realized she'd let her guard down enough for the camp commander to sneak up on them undetected. Before she could even stiffen her upper lip again, Marge and an unfriendly human knight who seemed like William's evil twin emerged from behind the main gate. The dwarf's face was already scrunched into a bitter scowl, and Tirith braced herself for Marge's usual rush to disrespect her in front of her peers.

"Soldier, the back entrance to the camp has been unpatrolled for half an hour!" the camp commander burst out before the two friendly humans even had time to salute. The unfriendly human furrowed his brow and stared at Tirith as if she were the strangest thing he'd ever seen, despite his having lived at the same small settlement for months. "I've been watching that back entrance to monitor if you've been doing your job, and I didn't see you at all. Murlocs could have invaded the camp during that time and we'd all be _dead_ because of you."

Having called Marge's bluff twice and winning an argument once by countering the dwarf's racial slurs with painful truths about her family, Tirith had little to fear from the camp commander. In a year's time they'd part ways and never see each other again. That being said, Tirith saw no reason to create drama, either.

"My sincere apologies, Commander; should you see it fit to assign punitive duties, it is your right to do so." Tirith spoke with confidence and meant what she said, and even the unfriendly human appeared taken aback by her impervious attitude. "Even though my shift has ended, I will patrol one more time in order to run an inspection of the defenses before retiring for the day."

Unable to let Tirith win - even when the sentinel was preemptively accepting janitorial duty - Marge adjusted her gaudy sash and went so far as to remove her lipstick stained cigarette from her mouth. "That is _not_ your decision to make, soldier; your duties will be based on operational need," the dwarf shot back, moving to block Tirith's path even though she'd made no move to exit. "Our fort needs to be secure; you're working an extra two hours overtime without pay right now. As in, now-now. And before you claim that it's against regulations for overtime to be assigned retroactively, I'll remind you that you can even work a double shift as long as a healer is on duty beside you," Marge continued while motioning toward Khadijah.

The polite priestess didn't reveal her true feelings - indeed, shows the most calm and collected in the camp - but she did shift in an almost heavy way uncharacteristic of herself. "There is no healer on duty beside her; my assistant is off until the afternoon and I have to keep watch in the infirmary until then lest we suffer any unanswered emergencies." In the middle of her sentence, Khadijah had already wrapped her shawl around herself a little tighter. "If you'll excuse me, Commander, I need to heave breakfast at the canteen before I begin my work," she continued in a way so polite that Tirith almost suspected the normally mousy priestess of actually being passive aggressive toward the odious dwarf. Which made the night elf as happy as could be.

Defeat swept over Marge's face as it had multiple times before. So hard was she struck that she didn't even have time to physically block Khadijah from leaving, and considering the fact that Marge relied on the goodwill of at least a plurality of the camp's population through favoritism and nepotism, it was unlikely that she would have tried as long as William was there. "Wha...Khadijah, this is a serious crisis; we need a healer on duty so this overtime can happen!" Marge said to the air just beyond the main gate where the priestess had once stood.

Once again knowing that ignoring the power hungry pompous dwarf was the best way to enflame her, Tirith promptly turned around, bid William farewell and marched around the perimeter of the outside wall, working her way toward the back of the fort. The commander's disrespect hurled from behind her did nothing other than make Marge look even worse in the eyes of their peers, though Tirith did feel bad for William, who would be out on the spot in terms of either telling Marge bluntly that she was an ass or staying quiet and listening to her rant.

Soon enough the sound died out, and Tirith found herself alone as she scouted the perimeter of the camp once more. Having performed such tasks for ten thousand years, she knew full well whether she actually needed to inspect the back entrance at any given time or not; the sounds that reached her sensitive ears and the odors that the wind pushed to her nose were much more valuable than what she or any of them could scan with their eyes. Not that she resented giving the area between the back of the camp and the stream facing it another look over; if anything, it gave her time to continue listening for Marge's voice and ensure that they wouldn't see each other again as she ate dinner and relaxed for an hour or so before going to sleep. The dwarf's loud, annoying voice bounced off the walls of the many crowded structures inside of the camp and echoed outward toward the edge of the clearing, allowing Tirith to visualize almost exactly where the commander was stomping during her tantrum to blow off the remaining steam from their miniature confrontation.

Once Tirith was sure that Marge had either waddled off to her office or become preoccupied by actual work, the sentinel slipped into the back entrance of the camp, entirely unnoticed by the lazy human youth posted back there and ostensibly charged with the safety of the entire settlement. Inside, many the civilian workers were going about their business, while a few of them had joined the increasing number of travelers in the canteen area. Filled with a few untidy picnic tables on a dirt patch between the multiple cooking shacks, the area was the location of most of Camp Freedom's public social life, and seemed to be busy all hours of night and day save the very wee hours of twilight. Having grown used to nearly living in her armor during all the patrols she'd been on, Tirith didn't think twice before merely setting her glaive and shield down against the side of the building - the camp was extremely safe - and lining up to order herself some greasy human food, plate armor and all.

Normally, her presence would have raised a few eyebrows, but since she'd opened up marginally toward the idea of at least sitting next to Khadijah or a handful of other people there on some mornings, she'd quickly become an accepted member of the community and promptly forgotten. Which was exactly what she preferred, considering how tired she'd grown of the tendency of the outlanders in the cities to stare.

As she waited in line to order, a particularly raucous group of travelers were laughing as they gorged themselves on fatty food.

"Two of them! They were burying something on the riverbank; probably a dead body they'd finished eating," a particularly loathsome human who had been rather drunk the night before boasted, sitting on the tabletop of one of the picnic tables instead of the proper bench. "Caught the first one in the back of the head, right behind its stupid long ear; the other one was dumb enough to turn around and took the next bullet right between the eyes." The black haired human in a blazing yellow and red tabard spoke with a weird drawl that Tirith found incredibly annoying, but that the human and dwarven women sitting around him and his friends found alluring.

"Were they Horde?" asked a starry eyed dwarf girl that looked like the polar opposite of Marge in every way, but was still annoying in her ditziness nonetheless.

"Nay, lass; Horde trolls have red hair, like the headcutters," a second human wearing the same tabard replied, imitating a dwarf's accent. He obviously meant the Bloodscalp tribe, but like many of the members of the faction, he hadn't taken the time to learn the names of the natives to the land they were trying to colonize. "These ones had blue hair; they're headsplitters."

"Their hair turned red once we shot those two mongrels, though," the first human joked with a slap to his knee. After a loud laugh echoed by all the airheads around them, he winced in pain, having somehow forgotten the bloodied bandages around his thigh.

"Aw, did one of the nasty trolls attack you?" asked a gnomish girl far too short to ever be with any of the three humans dressed in black and wearing the red and yellow tabards marking yet another one of the strange organizations called guilds.

"No, by the Light, one of those dumb, slow animals would never catch a stallion like this," the third human replied in a voice that was unnecessarily loud, like some teenage boy, while slapping another one of his buddies in the back (they all looked the same to Tirith). "This was from a slip and fall during the drinking celebration after-"

"Hey, hey, hey!"

The group all continued to laugh, interrupt each other and nearly choke on food until Tirith was almost to the front of the line. So hard had she tried to tune everything else out that she didn't even notice Persephone had been standing behind her in line.

"Isn't he dreamy?" the half elf cooed as if trying to compete with the assortment of guild groupies for vacuousness.

"My dreams of him involve my boot and his ass," Tirith grumbled in Darnassian, safe in the knowledge that Persephone didn't know anything about her father's culture or even speak the language that well.

Sure enough, she only understood the curse word Tirith had used and failed to comprehend the rest of the sentence. "I know, his ass is great, isn't it? His name is Derrick."

"I don't care."

"Do you think we could muscle in and draw their attention away from all those short bitches?"

"What the...Persephone, what on Azeroth...?"

"You and me, right? We should show this place who the real bosses are, and teach them a thing or two about..." The mage paused, waggling her tongue from side to side inside her mouth as she appeared to search through the five or six Thalassian words that she actually knew. "Valresa anar," she finished with, completely butchering the word for courtship and making it sound more like the word for washing carpet.

"You know, Persephone, that sounds like...something, but I have to practice my shading using yellow and green tints today."

"Ohhhh...you have that new shipment of canvas, right? You should paint Derrick's ass."

A growl began to rumble deep in Tirith's throat, only to be cut off by the commotion of a frantic traveler bursting into the camp through the back entrance. Everyone's head turned as an obviously distraught young human stumbled into the canteen - the closest occupied area to the entrance - and nearly fell over as he waved his arms around to catch everybody's attention.

"Help! Quick, we need," the young man panted as a few bystanders tried to help him up. "Twenty minutes, running, we can still make it!"

Shoulders high, chin up, legs hobbling, the human named Derrick slid off the table and approached the young man. "Alright son, just calm down. What's going on?" he asked loudly, very much the attention seeking alpha male typical of the outlanders. Tirith rolled her eyes when everyone else's focus shifted from the man who actually needed help to the boorish rifleman.

Red in the face, the panicked young man wiped a bit of dirt from his sweat soaked scout's war uniform. "We found a savage...a big blue savage with blue hair picking for oyster shells by a waterfall. It was horrible, we had two dozen people in our exploration party and it killed half of us before we cornered it."

"How awful!" the gnome girl who was short even for a gnome cried while pressing her tiny hands to her cheeks.

"They dispatched me to get help from the nearest settlement, I almost couldn't find this place. Please, we almost have him - we have a fire canon team from Ironforge and everything - we just need magic!"

"Well, wait a second there lad - savages can regenerate from anything except fire. Why would you need help if you have a fire canon?" Derrick asked. Before the young man could reply, he held up his hand in a motion everyone else seemed to think was noble and commanding. "We're not accusing you of lying, but we have to be sure before sending anyone out there."

"We? You have no authority in this camp, idiot," Tirith muttered in Darnassian.

"Yes, those beasts in woods big idiots are!" Persephone muttered back in her broken Thalassian, honestly believing she could understand and speak the language.

Everyone ignored the two elves entirely, admiring how relieved the young man became in reaction to the guild leader's annoyingly loud voice. "There's a waterfall...it has a cave behind it. Everything happened so fast...the monster killed a dozen good men with his bare hands. He just...punched them to death. We hit him with every bullet and arrow we had but he healed too fast. Then we brought out the fire canons." Someone handed the young man a waterskin to drink from, which helped him to speak more clearly. "The beast turned tail and ran as soon as it saw the fire canon."

"Let me guess...that cowardly monster hid itself in the cave behind the waterfall, and the flame column can't penetrate the water well enough to strike the beast?" Derrick asked haughtily.

"Why...yes, that's exactly the problem," the young man confirmed. A round of oohs and erupted from the group as if Derrick were some sort of mind reader. "We've been waiting since before last dusk...it's been over twelve hours, but when we tried to send one member of the fire team through the waterfall, he got punched before his canon's nozzle even reached the edge of the water; it smelled him coming and reached through. Poor guy, his head flew clean off of his neck. The beast doesn't sleep and it won't come out. We've reached an impasse."

Floating and gloating, Persephone got out of line and joined the group. "I've been studying my fire spells lately," she purred at Derrick, tapping her staff to conjure a small flame and ignoring the young man who had been the one speaking. "The waterfall will block normal fire, but not conjured flames; nature can never stop the arcane." Persephone's pompous smirk angered Tirith almost as much as her infuriating blasphemy, and it was a real task to restrain her tongue.

A moment of fake, theatrical silence played out before Derrick pulled out a toothpick and stuck it between his lips just so he could pull it out dramatically. "I'm going," he said while making no move to actually go anywhere.

"No Derrick, you can't go with your leg!" an identical looking human exclaimed while jumping to his feet.

The two of them squabbled, competing to see who could talk the loudest without actually shouting and who could pretend they really wanted to fight a forest monster. All the while the young man fidgeted nervously as his allies' fate ticked away due to the grandstanding for the cooing airheads.

Once Derrick finally relented, he began giving orders to all the adventurers save Persephone, who was technically off duty military and was going by choice. His two friends, the young man, Persephone and a gnome tinkerer who understood how to handle a fire canon congregated around the edge of the canteen area, all under the gaze of the back entrance guard who looked on jealously as the adventurers prepared to leave uninhibited by schedules and work duties.

For her part, Tirith felt happy to be ignored and spent her time collecting and eating her dinner of bland bread and some cucumbers and asparagus that perplexingly had sugar sprinkled on them by the food preparers. She'd just about finished as the annoying group left to harass some beast in the woods and possibly get themselves killed as well. And she was simply too tired of them and their foolishness to care.

Until the parting comments caught her ear.

"Thank you all for coming; this thing has murdered too many innocent explorers for the Alliance. It almost seems intelligent, the way it shouted at us in Common and figured out how to hide from our canons," the slightly less panicked young scout addressed to the entire canteen area. "We'll make sure that the monster's big, tusky head will be mounted on a wall where it belongs."

"You all take care of yourselves now; those headsplitters might be animals like the other savages, but they're cunning animals. You'll have to outwit them if you want to stain that blue mohawk red." Content that he'd done his job without needing to do anything, Derrick sat down to bask in the admiration of his guild's groupies.

Two long ears twitched, and Tirith swallowed her mug of water from the canteen a bit too quickly. The group trotted away far too slowly for what the winded scout claimed was a twenty minute run, giving her time to think.

It wasn't any of her business, but memories of a stranger who had helped her refused to leave her alone. Chances that the situation was what she thought it was were low, but she found herself rising to her feet regardless. She had to be sure; and even if it was some other random Skullsplitter, the attitude of a faction of occupiers toward the natives bothered her, even if it was her faction now, and even if the natives were rather savage. Most likely, the veritable raid group of Alliance members had harassed a local champion, bitten off more than they could chew and paid dearly for it. Having seen so many comrades fall over the millennia, and too many overzealous outlanders throw their lives away due to pride, the news of dead adventurers moved her heart very litte; if she could just diffuse the conflict between a group of strangers and a wandering savage, she would.

Picking up her glaive and shield, Tirith followed the sounds of the rowdy group just as they began to pick up speed. Derrick may or may not have shouted encouraging after her, though she'd already exited the camp by that point. All along the way until she caught up, she prayed that the young man's story was just a weird coincidence.


	14. July 3, year 24, B

_July 3, year 24_

After a round of encouragement and applause that irritated her, Tirith fell into step behind the party of five she'd been following as they all barreled toward the waterfall that supposedly concealed a wandering jungle savage from their comrades' flame throwers. Two human members of some hotshot guild, a younger human scout that looked about ready to pass out, a gnomish tinkerer and the most annoying half elf Tirith ever had the misfortune to meet all jabbered away as the group spent well more than the claimed twenty minutes traveling even while jogging at a speed that outlanders seemed to consider moderately fast.

Whether or not the big blue man hiding behind the waterfall really had instigated the hostilities or not, Tirith would try to dissuade her fellow members of the Alliance from continuing the conflict. If they truly had lost a dozen fighters to the beast, then a measured response would be to disengage as long as it wasn't in the prowl for more victims; exacting revenge was an unmeasured, purely reactionary response. The lack of understanding of the balance of nature she found among those outside of Kalimdor was maddening at times.

Of course, if the beast had initiated hostilities or proved to be a credible threat to others if left to prowl, then Tirith would feel no qualms about putting it down; she and the rest of her kind understood the need to eliminate parts of nature that proved to be elements of chaos or detrimental to the balance. She just didn't trust the five in front of her or the dozen waiting for them to make such a judgment call themselves.

More than anything, the rather bigoted conversation she was forced to listen to on the way there confirmed that belief of hers.

"This thing is a headsplitter apparently, so be on the lookout!" the young human scout yelled over his shoulder, far too loudly, as he led the group through the dense underbrush of the Stranglethorn rainforest that never seemed to allow more than a few yards of visibility. "These things aren't even allowed in the Horde they're so wretched and primitive. They're just as awful, but of sturdier build and more brutal!"

"Aye, I've heard of that, lad," one of the two humans wearing the blazing red and yellow tabard replied, still mimicking the accent of the dwarven airhead back at Camp Freedom's canteen area for no good reason. "They prefer the flesh of women and children as well, especially when the victim is still living." As the group jogged and yelled loud enough to spoil any chances of stealth, the man glanced at Persephone. "Don't worry, mage; we won't allow any of these things to touch you!"

Tee hee-ing like a true ditz, the half elf looked entirely unprepared for any sort of conflict given her obnoxiously flirtatious demeanor once the other airheads were away and her inappropriate, completely unprotective excuse for cloth armor. "Don't worry, mages stand in the back row; as long as I have strong enough supporters, I'll feel perfectly safe!" Persephone chortled.

"Don't worry; well protect you to the very end, milady!" the second human bellowed as if it were a competition to see who could talk the loudest in the middle of uncharted territory.

Not wanting to leave any second without useless chatter, the gnome took his turn next. "I've been given tips on how to deal with the headsplitter tribe before. Fighting is in their nature, like other lower life forms in the animal kingdom; they must be dealt with differently from the blackarrow tribe in the Horde."

"Well, lay those tips on us!" burst out one of the two humans guild members, whom Tirith was really having difficulty differentiating from one another.

"First of all, they're the size of ogres but without all the blubber to slow them down. If you're at range they'll stand back and shoot like a bunch of cowards."

"Everybody fires projectiles when at range, you blithering idiot," Tirith muttered in Darnassian quietly enough that nobody heard her.

"But if you give them the chance, they'll rush you and pounce before you even have a chance to launch a counterattack."

"Ugh...nobody let's an opponent hit them back if poss...my goddess." Muttering unheard replies in Darnassian only seemed to make Tirith feel even more irritated, and she tried her best to restrain her tongue from that point on.

Laughing hard enough such that he head tilted back and he almost ran into a tree, one of the two human guildies seemed rather confident. "Sounds like these headsplitters are cowards no matter how near or far they are from people!" the man snickered.

"Second of all, they're durable and they heal quickly. Stabbing and bashing them doesn't really work unless you can corner one of them with a battalion, or unless you can burn them - they can't heal from burns. And if you want to shoot them, you need to aim for the back of the head behind the ear."

"Just like ol' Derrick!"

"And always go for their pups - their young aren't as crafty and deceptive as the mature specimens."

"If we cull the pups of the savages, do you think we could remove them entirely?" the young scout asked casually, as if he weren't really discussing the mass murder of sentient children. "Like we do to rats or cockroaches?"

"That's what lions do to their prey - target the young, the old and the sick," replied the gnome. "It's a noble method to deal with threats from more primitive life forms."

Pursing his lips so his soul patch pointed forward like a compass, one of the two older humans suddenly looked very serious. "Soon enough, the headsplitters will come to fear the lions of the blue and gold; predator will become prey!" he spat through grit teeth in a tone the others found inspiring and intimidating.

Thankfully, the unbearable discussion that consisted of boasting about nothing and planning for infanticide came to an end when the sounds of a waterfall, a small stream and frustrated and impatient adventurers could be heard. By the sound of it, there were a number of sleeping individuals as well as waking ones - Tirith's ears could pick up the sound of their snoring even from so far away - as well as an unsuccessful attempt at a campfire that continuously created sparks but no fire. Those members of the minor raid group who weren't asleep were talking so loud that it was confounding that the rest of Tirith's companions hadn't heard them yet.

"I hear people; perhaps six sleeping and four awake and talking," the night elf announced to their own party of six.

The scout began to slow down, which nobody aside from Tirith opposed given how exhausted the outlanders had become after nearly half an hour of brisk jogging. "Yes, I recognize my own footsteps here...and those of the party." For a moment he went quiet again before doing a double take. "Wait, only ten people? No, that can't be right; there were eleven of us left when I departed to seek help from you guys!"

"I am not picking up any sounds of an eleventh."

"By the sun!" Persephone squeaked out of nowhere.

It wasn't difficult to see why after a moment. In addition to numerous broken branches and kicked up dirt on their path toward the campsite, there were also numerous blood stains on the trees and ground. A portion of it was as thick as jelly - the regenerative blood of a troll - but most of it was the standard thin, smelly substance common among shorter races. When bone shards and chunks of flesh and brains appeared on the ground, the others save the scout began to gag, which finally drew the attention of those at the campsite.

"What! Who goes there?" asked the voice of a female gnome loudly, alarming the entire camp and causing the six slumbering members to leap and fall as they tried and failed to prepare for an invasion of their campsite.

The voices of multiple adventurers from multiple races filled the jungle in the immediate area as the adventurers panicked. All around the part of broken trees and bushes toward the campsite was strewn more blood and gore; sure enough, Tirith saw at least ten other dead bodies, or at least shattered body parts that would comprise ten people were they stitched back together. Sure enough, the damage was consistent with what Tirith knew to be severe blunt force trauma from a large, heavy object. Scanning through her combat experience against all shapes and sizes of different demons and undead, she was able to guess that the perpetrator was lighter than an infernal but struck at a much, much higher speed, and was slower than sabre cat but struck with a much, much higher amount of raw power. Though she'd seen far too much in her time to be as disgusted by the sight as her companions, she did fall into a combat stance in recognition of the threat posed by whatever creature had beaten ten decently armored and heavily armed fighters to death with what appeared to be nothing but its knuckles, by the look of the few wounds that hadn't resulted in dismemberment.

"It's us! Don't worry!" the scout yelled to his disturbed comrades, nearly slipping in a bloody patch of dirt in the process.

"The cavalry has arrived!" added one of the two human guildies.

"Thank the light!" came back the nearly identical voice of another human among the campers. "We thought we'd been abandoned and wouldn't be able to put an end to this monster!"

"It's about damn time!" followed the loud grumble of a male dwarf about as angry sounding as Marge.

Finally the camp came into view, and ten people of various different races rose to meet the six new arrivals; almost all eyes were on Tirith and Persephone, the only two people possessing long ears. Greetings were exchanged between the two sides, though none of the adventurers caught the night elf's eye as she surveyed their surroundings.

The waterfall dropped down from the cliff of what was either a large hill or a small mountain, breaking through the large elephant ears and pouring into a largely stagnant pond on the white sand before slowly flowing into a stream that disappeared out of sight beneath the undergrowth that surround them in all directions are the path they'd taken to get there. Mist filled the air and stuck to most surfaces, and the whole area felt like one giant sauna. It would have been rather tranquil were it not for the scattered pieces of the eleventh raid member floating at the top of the large pond collecting beneath the waterfall itself. The supposed cave in question was entirely invisible behind the roaring waterfall.

Another gnome, four dwarves and five humans all huddled around the new arrivals, looking jumpy and irritable as they straightened up their disheveled and blemished suits of mostly medium armor. Two of long iron tubes standing on tripods signified the fire canons recently developed for mortar teams in the Stormwind military; stockpiles of glass spheres filled with volatile liquids sat next to them, and canisters of gunpowder were lying all over the place. The torn and dirtied bedrolls and single damaged tent that the raid possessed were damp from the mist, and a ridiculous amount of rations had been half eaten in the minuscule twelve hour period the ten people had spent there and then tossed in the bushes. The whole scene rubbed Tirith the wrong way with a proverbial sheet of sandpaper.

After a pointless round of introductions had concluded, the young scout looked at the floating bloody chunks that had once been a person but we're now floating at the top of the pond. "Frankie...what did that thing do to Frankie?"

In an overly dramatic way that made Tirith want to kick something, an older human from the raid reached forward and put his hand on the scout's shoulder. "Frankie is dead," the older human stated as if the guy named Frankie weren't clearly floating in a pond in multiple severed pieces.

At first the scout shook his head as if in denial, but then quickly reverted to wailing like a child as the two gnomes and one of the dwarves tried to console him. The whole group didn't seem like they had any experience at all, and would have been woefully unprepared had a group of the Skullsplitter's fellow tribesmen discovered them there. Sick and tired of the theatrics, Tirith tried to get to the bottom of the conflict to discover if the jungle troll hiding behind the waterfall really was a danger to the Alliance settlers in the area or not.

"The young man here informed us that your group was assaulted by a wandering member of the Skullsplitter tribe. What happened?"

Nodding calmly and stepping forward, a rather young looking dwarf with an accent more akin to the humans of Lordaeron nominated himself as spokesman for the raid. "It started yesterday evening. We were out here on a routine exploration of the area - gemstones, landmarks, oil, anything of note - when we found the discarded hooves of a tropical herbivore. Sure enough, the savage had been stalking and abducting the animals on known Alliance soil for food."

One of the older humans who had been sleeping looked rather irate as he addressed everyone. "These headsplitters have no respect for the sanctity of ownership or freedom of travel at all! These lands have been claimed by the Alliance - what right do they have to trespass and steal game animals on our territory?!" he bellowed without a hint of irony in his voice.

"So anyway, we confronted the savage and ordered it to surrender its kill and vacate our land. And it just stands up and dumps the grossest bits of the other animal's carcass on us; it chucked it in a line and splattered us all, then yelled something about this land belonging to its tribe. The whole exchange was surreal; the savage not only spoke like a person, but it even displayed the capability to lie."

"Damned lies!" growled another one of the dwarves.

"So the man appeared to have been upset that you approached him in a group, and then disputed the faction's claim to this land," Tirith repeated as she tried to sort the situation out. "Is that correct?"

Everything had been relatively calm up until that point. The sound of the waterfall continued to flow in the background, and the scout still seemed shaken by all the death around them, but all things considered, the situation had relaxed considerably. Reinforcements had arrived, everyone other than Tirith appeared relieved after the round of introductions and the discussion of what had happened and what needed to be done gave the group a chance to let their negative feelings out.

But when Tirith's voice echoed between the trees and returned to her ears unanswered, she knew that there was a problem. A noticeable shift in the demeanor of the entire group occurred, and she found a number of eyes on her once again.

The dwarf who had nominated himself as the group spokesperson cocked his head to the side in confusion before breaking the silence. "Corporal...that _beast_ reacted to the presence of intelligent life according to _its_ nature. We moved to secure the faction's territory from an intruder, and found our honor besmirched by an absolutely disgusting display that was only one step away from flinging excrement." Straightening up to his full height, the dwarf, whose beard smelled like gunpowder, stared at Tirith standoffishly and all the friendliness from earlier melted away. "May I continue explaining how twelve of our dear, valiant comrades were murdered in cold blood?" he asked, his voice laced with condescension as if he were speaking to a disrespectful child.

The acrimony wasn't lost on Tirith, though the cause was. While it was natural that they'd be sensitive about the loss of their comrades, the member of the group who'd appeared to be the most level headed proved to be entirely obtuse if he couldn't wrap his head around the fact that surrounding a member of an enemy nation who technically had more right to the land than they did would be taken as a hostile gesture.

Before Tirith could respond to the dwarf in kind, one of the two humans wearing a blazing yellow and red tabard literally leaned in front of Tirith, blocking the dwarf's view of her as if she were some sort of an embarrassment to the group from Camp Freedom. "Please, sir, finish your story about how our patriots fell," the human said like a true ass kisser to someone who held no legal authority over any of them. It was almost over the top group think in terms of attitude, though if it was any consolation, Tirith felt more eyes pull away from her after they were done glaring judgmentally.

"Thank you very much, sir," the gunpowder smelling dwarf replied to approving looks from the others, starting a figurative echo chamber before anyone else even talked at length. "As I was saying, the beast flung unmentionable parts of its stolen kill at us, and began to rant and rave about land thievery; it was honestly the most blatant example of cognitive dissonance I've ever seen. It just started to accuse us exactly of what it was doing, and that's on top of the fact that it spoke clearly despite its genetically deficient mind. Our honor had been sullied and our land transgressed upon, so we delivered an ultimatum to the monster: vacate or face the hands of justice. And then...all hell broke loose."

"What happened?" the gnomish tinker who had come from Camp Freedom asked, his eyes as wide as what gnomish sized saucers might look like.

Shaking his head in an overly dramatic way, the gunpowder dwarf stares down at his blood stained shoes. "We didn't want this conflict. We did everything in our power to avoid it, but when civilized people are threatened by these rabid animals, there is no means to achieving peace except through warfare. The beast refused to vacate the premises, and so we opened fire. Four archers and three riflemen back there - you passed their remains on your way here. It must have been cursed by voodoo; the monster just absorbed our projectiles and rushed forward. It didn't even announce which one of our brave heroes it was challenging to a duel before striking; our ranged fighters were taken by the sneak attack and fell when the monster hit them, hard enough to send their limbs flying off their bodies."

"What kind of dastardly weakling rushes to melee distance against a bunch of ranged fighters!" exclaimed one of the sleepy eyed humans. "And without even giving them a chance to fight it one on one!" The rest of the group nodded, sincerely failing to understand why an unarmed loner in the woods wouldn't give enough time to a group of people shooting at him to continue shooting at him.

"The foul magic of these things kicked in, and the creature's hide mended itself of the bullet and arrow wounds," the gunpowder dwarf continued. "It jumped around and refused to hold still or actually engaged any of us fairly; three of our melee fighters fell before we brought out...the firepower."

"The canons!" growled another one of the dwarves, throwing in a decisive slice of his hand through the air.

"By that time we'd been able to load one of our fire canons, and when the wretch recognized them as flame throwing weapons, it showed its true colors and ran with its tail between its legs. You should have seen it."

"These things have tails, by the way," added the female gnome.

"That's when the beast ran to the waterfall - I'm sure their kind searches for places to cower away when in need. It took us a long time to dismantle the first fire canon, but we had the second one at the ready. The problem is the water; the column of flame can't penetrate the falls well, and the nozzle needs to be close. The problem is, the beast is the size of an ogre and has long arms; when our first fire team started to set the second fire canon up within range, the beast reached through and hit one of our members with impunity." The dwarf whose beard smelled of gunpowder paused at the seething anger vented by the entire group, who seemed absolutely incensed that an enemy backed into a corner fought like someone backed into a corner. "We regrouped to find a new strategy, but setting up the canons further back resulted in the column of flame only brushed the surface of the falls without penetrating deep enough into the cave. We played the waiting game until this morning to tire the beast out, but before dawn when we tried setting up the fire canon again, we lost another good man to a cowardly sucker punch that decapitated him."

"That's when I was dispatched to seek your aid," the young scout told the group of five from the camp. "But...Frankie?"

This time, one of the humans, a brown haired man wearing cheap leather armor the same color as his hair, chose to answer. "He was a brave man, and couldn't stand to see so many of us lost to this thing. He insisted...he died a hero's death." A moment of silence that felt rehearsed took place thereafter, until Tirith felt pressed to break it.

"You know...in Kalimdor, we often experienced difficulty when facing wildlife. Bears, wolves, sabres...occasionally, they would become hostile as is their nature, and on rare instances we suffered casualties involving our inexperienced and our youth. We were faced with a choice: we could react the emotional way and lash out, exterminating a being who was only obeying the balance of nature, or react rationally, and understand that despite our grief, punishing a being for obedience achieved nothing, and wouldn't bring our comrades back. Revenge might satisfy our-"

"The moon elf is right!" a human wearing an eye patch interrupted, jabbing his finger at Tirith as if she were a cardboard cutout display. "We need to avenge our allies!"

"Yeah!"

"Woot!"

"The canons!"

"What? No! No, that's not what I was trying to-"

"Wait! Wait! Everybody wait!" yelled the only female human among the group as she waved around her oversized mail gauntlets that didn't match the rest of her armor. "We can't start yet."

"Of course, this is madness!" Tirith said in the closest her voice could go toward urgency.

Rather than supporting her point, however, the female human only dug her proverbial fingernails into the skin of Tirith's back in a way they would never comprehend. "In honor of the fallen...in honor of our desecrated land..." Reaching behind her while staring straight ahead dramatically, the human pulled a metal pole out of her oversized backpack.

"The blue and gold!" spat another dwarf through his grit teeth.

Like clockwork, other members of the group helped the woman attach a piece of cloth to the metal pole, to the delight of the others and the utter shock of Tirith. Flashbacks of the day her own village had received word that their people had joined the Alliance passed before her eyes, combining with the jungle heat and humidity and the weight of her plate armor to cause her a measure of dizziness. She hadn't realized it at the time, but eventually that entrance to the faction led to the complete cultural dissolution of the only home she'd known for ten millennia, and the absolute despoilment of the natural environment due to the influx of immigrants from the Eastern Kingdoms. Vivid in her memory like it had been yesterday, Tirith could remember the planting of that flag on the grounds of her sacred grove, the entrance of missionaries preaching faith in the Light rather than Elune and the ruination of her village's traditional hunting grounds. After human and dwarven adventurers exploited the quail around Serenity Grove nearly to extinction, a missive drafted in Stormwind and bearing a token stamp from Darnassus arrived ordering that fines be issues to all people hunting quail outside of seasons that didn't correlate to the actual calendar in use in Kalimdor, restricting the local women despite the fact that it was the outlanders who had strained the resources.

Mental stress coursed through Tirith's veins and turning borderline comatose while standing was all she could do in order to remain in control of her emotions in public. Her own rationality left her, and she found herself unable to fight off the encroaching sense of panic and anxiety even when she was totally aware of what was happening to her. The humans sank the flagpole into the soft soil near the edge of the stagnant pond in a tacky, meaningless gesture of domination and colonization that struck a chord deep inside her forest dwelling soul. Guidance of the authorities on Teldrassil be damned, they'd sacrificed small local communities for the sake of developing and enriching the larger cities of the Kaldorei. And when that blue and gold flag wafted through the humid rainforest air, Tirith felt a sense of indignance at the entire scene that she knew wasn't level headed.

"Well, now that the heavens have witnessed the conquering of this land for their favored faction, we need to set these canons up," female human said with a smug satisfaction.

Eyes lighting up, the young human scout leapt forward. "Not a necessary risk anymore, friends! We've brought...a mage!" he beamed while sweeping both hands toward Persephone.

"Ta da!" the half elf chirped while raising both arms up in the air. "I've been practicing my fire spells lately!"

The silence that followed her proclamation didn't last for long. "And...magic isn't stopped by water. The...the fire spells would pass right through the waterfall...you're a genius!" the gunpowder dwarf cheered.

"I try!"

Spirits of all but one person in the clearing in front of the waterfall were raised dramatically, and the group inched closer toward the edge of the pond, chattering all the way.

"You hear that, you big, dumb mongrel!" called out one of the humans, who had become indistinguishable to Tirith as she tried to suppress her soaring heart rate. "Prepare to get fried!"

"We're going to turn this thing into a hamburger!" added another.

"Yeeeeehaaaaaww!" cheered the female human, determinable only because of her shrill voice.

The two gnomes took Persephone by the hand, led her toward the water's edge and helped her to remove her offensively bright red boots lest they become wet. Every bit the self assured princess, she took her time responding to the hollers and cheers of the rest of the group, reveling in the fact that after they'd all quite literally attempted to murder a stranger in the woods minding his own business and cornered him for half a day when he'd defended himself, she would now burn him alive without granting him a fighting chance to simply run away and surrender the territory to them.

Anger. Tirith identified the emotion pounding inside her skull. She was entirely aware that she wasn't logical anymore, but she didn't care. Her anger at the oppression she was witnessing before her very eyes overwhelmed any other sense of her existence at that point.

" **Stop**!" she borderline screamed, terrifying all fifteen people congregated at the edge of the pond. The two gnomes actually fell into the water.

"Shit, Corporal Nightshade, what's going on?" a voice that sounded like the scout asked, though her judgment and discernment felt cloudy in a way she wasn't used to.

"My hair is wet!" one of the gnomes whined.

"Are we being ambushed?" someone she didn't care to know of burst out nervously.

Feeling a surge of energy break her out of her comatose state, most imposing person in the group by a noticeable margin stomped forward, frightening all of them even more. Her vision focused again and she realized that all fifteen pairs of eyes were on her most of them distrusting. Her refusal to follow the crowd had been broadcast loud and clear.

"The man inside of that cave was ambushed, and he acted to protect himself accordingly!" she hissed at the group, too enraged by the injustice of their celebration of a stranger's impending murder to behave diplomatically. "You will remove yourselves at once, and will only attack if he's stupid enough not to escape!"

Glances were shared among the group and she detected numerous feelings. Confusion. Fear. Incredulity. But most strongly of all, defiance.

The dwarf whose beard smelled like gunpowder stepped forward, once again appointing himself as spokesperson for the group. "Corporal, I don't know what kind of joke this is, but the rest of us are going to take our revenge on this monstrosity for the cold blooded murder of thirteen people. You need to get your head checked."

"The person behind that waterfall reacted to a group of stranger's accosting him in the woods and trying to take his meat!"

"What the fu...what the...! Are you all hearing this?" one of the guildie humans asked to the entire group, almost laughing as if it were all a joke. His disdainful, mocking tone spoke otherwise, however, and he only made eye contact with Tirith for a few seconds before looking back toward the others. "What the hell is wrong with this woman? Why is she even here?"

"I'm here because-"

Unsheathing her claws and displaying backstabbing skills the real Syndicate would envy, Persephone displayed her true colors without hesitation. "We didn't actually ask her to come, just to make that clear; I really don't even know what she does at Camp Freedom," the little half elf snickered out loud, refusing to even look at Tirith.

"You lying little bi-"

"That's enough out of you," the gunpowder dwarf barked while turning his shoulder to the night elf. "Guys, ignore this nitwit. We're plagued by enough traitors as it is; don't give her the argument she wants and if she does anything stupid, we can just teach her a lesson."

Enraged by the blatant slander of her intentions, Tirith grit her teeth, but not as quickly as the other dwarf who seemed to be afflicted with lockjaw.

"If you don't like the Alliance, then you can _get out_ ," he spat at her.

"It's official, the barbecue is still happening today," the female human laughed. "Come on you, let's get this show on the road."

Persephone blushed at all the positive feedback. "Don't mind if I-"

"Back! Off! **Now**!" Tirith growled, stepping forward toward the group when she heard the flames crackle at Persephone's fingertips.

This time, the group did back away, but there were no exclamations. Crouching low, Tirith took a battle stance without even thinking, eyeing the group of fifteen as they inched away from her. Displaying teamwork she had doubted possible for them, the various humans, dwarves and gnomes began exchanging sideways glances toward each other and their third rate weapons, which had been left back toward the tent and sleeping bags. Fear propelled them toward a defensive mode, and she could sense them growing as tense as her. It was on.

"Corporal...take it easy...we'll help you get back to your camp, and we can have the commander sort this out there," the gunpowder dwarf said in a slow, plodding voice as if Tirith couldn't understand Common. To increase the sense of insult, he even began creeping over toward his air rifle a few yards away despite the fact that even a one eyed, nearsighted murloc would realize what he was trying to do. "Just stay where you are and nobody gets-"

"Move again and I _will hurt you_ ," Tirith threatened.

Emotion felt as if it was solidifying the reason in her mind; this was a group of bumbling miscreants who couldn't solve their way out of a paper bag who'd assumed they'd hit the jackpot when they'd found an unarmed, unaccompanied stranger in the woods and simply bit off more than they could chew. In their bitter, petty, acidic arrogance they'd refused to accept defeat and proven willing to wait half a day while seeking help if it meant murdering the stranger they'd cornered for the sake of their mentally disturbed egos. She realized that they would not hesitate to kill her or anyone else who refused to follow their groupthink, either.

Staring Tirith down with more hatred then she'd realized was there, Persephone sneered and saw her chance. "She's tall, hit her in the legs!" the half elf shouted, firing a sloppy, poorly aimed fireball about thirty feet to Tirith's right side that prompted the others to rush for their weapons.

Stupid mistake, the night elf thought to herself. They'd started this with her just as they had with the person inside the cave; in her mind, these people were now targets as valid as the Scourge or any other aggressive entity.

A single flick of her wrist, and Tirith sent her moon glaive flying off of her right bracer. Thousands of years of practice had taught her the proper angles, velocities and and amounts of force needed to swing the triple bladed weapon like a boomerang, causing it to ricochet off of targets before flying back to her. The dwarf whose beard smelled of gunpowder found his hands severed before he could grab his gun, and three more people found their arms and shoulders maimed before they could even reach their weapons. A nightblade would work to kill quickly; an old school, heavily armored huntress like Tirith would work to disable large numbers of opponents to better tank and manage the aggro of large groups. A second wave of people managed to at least reach their weapons, but by the time they'd wielded them Tirith had maimed four more, leaving eight people writhing on the ground.

Two dwarves and the two gnomes had dashed for the fire canons, working furiously to set up and load the light artillery while their comrades were left permanently handicapped behind them. By the time the tripods for the two canons had at least been set up, the Kaldorei had swiftly reached their position despite her incredible size and heavy armor, surprising all four of them by her presence as she cut them down unhesitantly.

Only two of her interlocutors even had a chance to mount an offense, but their movements were so unpracticed that the mere vibrations in the air from their swinging elbows reached Tirith's ears. She swung around in time to absorb a gunshot with the surface of her shield, parrying the blow from a mace at the same time. Her parry left the underarm of the mace wielding dwarf mangled in retaliation for his attempt at smashing her femur, and he dropped his weapon, still capable of standing but incapable of fighting. The reload time for the last standing human's rifle left her enough time to slice the neck of the mace wielder before she flung her glaive one last time, cutting the final rifleman open. Fully enraged and knowing that any person left alive could bring others after her later, Tirith struck again and again, preventing any of the maimed from fleeing.

The loud rush of flames and searing pain on the surface of her right bicep, however, sent her reeling.

"Aaaahhh!" she grunted, losing control of her glaive as it ended up stuck in the back of one of the dwarves.

There were precious few seconds for her to swing around at the last minute and crouch low enough for all of the flames to roar over her shield, heating it up and even singing her left arm somewhat. The burn wound on her right arm was excruciating, but nothing she hadn't already dealt with when tanking three infernals at once during the Battle of Mount Hyjal a few years prior. The erratic, unfocused energy of the flame informed her of the source, and without even needing to see, Tirith sprinted forward until she felt the thud of a light object bounce off of thorium.

"Eeeeeee!" screamed Persephone as she was knocked helplessly across the grass. A second scream rang out when Tirith detached her own shield and tossed it into the soil of the forest floor behind the half elf's head hard enough to leave the metal embedded in the ground. Having nowhere to crawl away to, Persephone looked up with her pleading, lying eyes. "Tirith, this was all a mistake! You and me, remember? We're a tea-"

"You fired the first shot at me," Tirith hissed while stomping forward, bearing her fangs at the terrified half elf.

"They made me do it!"

"You knew I was still tanking those tigers rather well and you could have either knocked them aside with concussive shots or teleported me out of there with you four months ago." Tirith continued stepping closer and closer until she stood directly over the mage.

"I thought you were dead - eeeeeiiiii!"

Lifting Persephone up by her poorly dyed blonde hair, Tirith felt a lot of repressed emotion flowing out through her mouth freely. "You wouldn't have asked me to forgive you if you thought I was dead," the night elf hissed. "And now you tried to kill a beaten man just trying to hide away."

"I told you, they forced me to do it! And, and..." Persephone rambled on for quite some time, failing to understand that Tirith's hard gaze was meant to be an invitation for a pause followed by honesty, not more lies upon lies in a pathetic plea to be let go so she could run away to Marge.

Hefting all of the half elf's weight in one arm with ease, Tirith swung Persephone back like a rag doll, whipping her around toward a thick tree trunk head first.

"Tiriiiiiiiith ARCK!"

The loud thud as Tirith whipped Persephone's head against the tree at a quarter of the power possible for her felt even more satisfying than spearing several of the tigers that had cornered her all those months before. Squirming and resisting despite the obvious neurological damage signified by her twitching limbs, Persephone refused to let up.

"Tirith...elves...we're a team...forgive...druids..."

The second thud echoed even louder, and the clattering of Persephone's teeth after she suffered brain damage marked the end up her incredibly annoying voice. Tossing her aside like so much rubbish, Tirith grunted as the burn wound on her right arm stung her again. It would need to be treated fast, but the entire altercation had occurred in such a short amount of time that her head was spinning too much to think. Surrounded by dead or nearly dead members of the faction she was legally a member of, all Tirith had the sense to do was pick up her glaive as a defensive response to being alone and without the support of other sentinels. Attempts to comprehend what she'd just done all failed, and she found herself incapable of believing what her eyes were seeing until a deep, familiar voice spoke from behind her.

"Tirith Nightshade...what you do?"

It very well could have been another random member of the Skullsplitter tribe. That wouldn't have made the actions of the fifteen people lying on the ground around her any less wrong, though it would have meant that she'd be faced with a second possible conflict after dealing with her supposed allies. The tribe was dangerous, and even Oacaxo - whose named she'd already forgotten how to pronounce - had mentioned that he wasn't normal for his kind. Were he someone more xenophobic, she very well could have signed her own death warrant by doing the right thing.

But when she turned around and saw that familiar hulking, nearly naked frame covered only in a small loincloth and topped by a naturally rising blue mohawk, she dropped her glaive and breathed a little easier. Intelligent, expressive eyes looked at her cautiously as he continued to wait for an explanation of a scene which she realized must make absolutely no sense to him.

Dizzy not from fatigue from a minor skirmish but rather from the anger fuele haze inside her head, she simply spoke the first words that came to her mind. "I chose to help," she panted before collapsing into a sitting position in front of the water, grimacing at the severe pain of her burn wound.


	15. July 3, year 24, C

_July 3, year 24_

"It seems that every time we meet, it involves me being injured in the woods and you patching me up."

Oacaxo barely even looked up at Tirith as he massaged the paste in. "We only met one time, other," the mumbled, obviously engrossed in his work. "Not move, you."

Given that his race was used to healing from incredibly grevious wounds, it made sense to her that he would slightly panic at the sight of a wound that wouldn't heal easily. If anything, it seemed that trolls of all varieties overreacted toward the sight of flesh wounds because of their regeneration; at least one tribe of the dark trolls, natives of Kalimdor, was allied under the banner of High Priestess Whisperwind and from what Tirith remembered of them, they reacted in the same alarmed manner when they witnessed their night elven allies receiving wounds that didn't simply seal up on their own immediately.

It was endearing, in a way; as much as Tirith disliked racism, she had to admit that even the jungle trolls bore a beastly appearance as members of the Alliance often claimed. Yet the moment Tirith had fallen to a sitting position after saying a single sentence to him, Oacaxo had trudged over toward her and wordlessly began working on a natural rainforest remedy for her burn wound. Which, of course, involved chewing up a smelly plant and smearing the slightly gross mush all over her skin.

"I say you, hold still," he repeated as he continued to massage the mush on her wound. Even he winced at least once when she had to spit the condition into his palm, though as she'd learned during her vast battlefield experience, there were times when squeamishness simply wasn't an option.

"You're grinding your palm against a moderate burn wound; forgive me if I twitch a few times," she replied, unable to hold her tongue when in so much pain despite her gratitude for his efforts; he very well could simply have waved to her and wandered off again once he'd emerged from the hidden cave.

A few groans sounded off all around them, signaling that the few members of the fifteen person lynch mob hadn't died quite yet. Persephone's teeth clattered every few minutes and her thrashing even seemed a bit directed, but her fate was sealed just as much as the fates of the others. And perhaps ironically, the night elf who had come to the rescue of a Skullsplitter felt no remorse for what she'd done even when she'd calmed down, loosened up and emptied her mind of the dizziness.

Surprising to her, however, was Oacaxo's disapproval. "I am happy for your help, but you made a mistake for you," he murmured while stuffing more of the noxious leaves into her mouth without asking permission first. "Chew this. And you make a mistake for you. You are Alliance. You killed other Alliance for me. You make me very happy for me, but worried for you."

The mention of someone she really didn't know that well worrying about her made her smile and temporarily forget the sour taste of the leaves and her disgust at having to spit it in his hand again, but his words reminded her of the reality of what she'd done. "I was angry," she replied defensively.

"You were stupid. I helped you before, no problem for me. But you helped me now, maybe a problem for you. Better for you if you letted them kill me."

At that, she glared at him. Tirith could read people well, and she easily sensed that Oacaxo truly was grateful, but his scolding trampled on her sense of independence. "Are you even listening to what you're saying right now?" she asked incredulously.

"Are you?" he asked. By his expression she could tell that he didn't repeat her question in an attempt to annoy her, but it still did a little bit.

"Wa-cha-ho, you would have died. Your people can't heal from fire."

"Yes, Tirith Nightshade; you saved my life. I am sorry to you if my words are not for thanks. But because you saved my life, I am worried for you; if my death time has come, then that is for the Loa to choose. But I not want you to have death time soon." He stopped massaging the mush into her arm, probably satisfied since there was such an excess amount that chunks were practically falling off. The look he gave her was one of a person who worried they weren't being properly understood. "My worry is my thanks to you."

Staring at him blankly for a few seconds, she waited for her annoyance to pass. Her heart had only recently calmed down and her emotions were still running high, as had begun to happen to her during periods of duress after the return of her mortality. "I understand," she reassured him, and the two of them sat on the forest floor for a minute or so as she felt a cold, intense tingling sensation from the natural salve wiped all over her burn wound. Since he didn't seem to be in a hurry to leave her, she decided to become reacquainted with her unlikely ally. "You have to admit though, even if we've only met twice, it's ironic that both times involved one of us being cornered in the woods and then helped by the other. Plus, you wandering around and me needing medicine of some sort."

"What it means, ironic?"

Stumped by his question, Tirith tried to find the words in her mind. Although Oacaxo's grammar was poor, he was technically a native speaker of Common, and in fact his accent was even slighter than hers, and much less pronounced than those of the Darkspear tribespeople she'd encountered at Nesingwary's camp. At a loss, she realized that she didn't quite have the vocabulary to explain irony without using examples.

"Irony is when you find a situation that occurs from random chance, but also happens to be...funny." When he continued to furrow his heavy brow in confusion, she found that she didn't quite have the patience to teach someone their own language. "This situation is funny."

"Your sense of humor is strange," he observed dryly. He sniffed the air with his rather large nose and glanced at her arm. "The salve works. You will be able to return to your camp soon. But...you have a problem, now."

He didn't need to spell it out for her to understand why he was worried. The sense of endearment was quickly overwhelmed by the sense of dread. "Yes...I've been the sole survivor of impromptu missions twice in a row. It will raise some eyebr...it will cause some of my comrades to become suspicious."

"What will you say them?"

Tirith traced a line below the edge of her burn wound absentmindedly as she sought for an excuse. "If you don't mind, I'll tell them that we killed you. Everybody back at the camp knows that you killed half the raid before reinforcements arrived, and that you held a fortified position, so it won't be too strange to tell them that you killed the other half as well before you went down. So I guess if I hang back a little longer, maybe tear up my cape, rub a bit of dirt on my armor...it would be within the realm of possibility."

"When I mind and when I don't mind, not difference; you say them that I died, then I will not know for both ways."

"It felt polite to ask."

"And here...I have a help for you." Oacaxo turned and crept over toward the pond, crouching ankle deep in the lightly flowing water. "When I escape to the cave, I drop these," he explained while lifting a necklace made of sinew linked around the tusks of other trolls. "I take these from Zandalari tribe when we warred last week. Show these to your people; tell them a second one of my people came, and the other Alliance died but you were the last survivor."

The term he used caused Tirith to twitch visibly, and a tingling sensation poked her hard between the eyes. "That's...a good idea," she replied in a bit of a daze as she accepted the tusk necklace. "Nobody heard about an entire war between two troll tribes last week."

"Much happens here and my people never say about it. Most of it is bad," he explained, a grimace very faintly washing across his face. "Many wars happen; more than we can remember. Most wars not have names, because there are too many. Trolls hate other trolls more than people who are not trolls." He spent a moment washing his hands of the excess salve before leaving the pond and sitting back on the grass next to her to dry off, but his mind appeared elsewhere. "My people are very foolish."

Before, Tirith had been unused to the concept of people of one race killing each other seeing as how all night elves behaved like family. Surveying the dying members of her new faction around her, however, she began to understand what it felt like. "Thank you for these, Wachaho...this should help to make my story more convincing. But if you don't mind me asking, what exactly happened? The group here confessed to threatening you in the woods, but I don't know how much of what they said was true."

Unlike Tirith, Oacaxo bore no burn wounds, and his hide looked completely unblemished despite the fact that he'd been shot by arrows and bullets multiple times. Regardless of his condition, however, he did seem to grow more sullen at the question. "This land is for jungle trolls; always has been, ever since Gurubashi and Amani agreed on borders, before the fight from your people and the Sundering."

Tirith's pulse jumped even more than it had when she'd confronted the remainder of the raid group. "The Sundering?! How do you know about that?" she burst out, surprised beyond all hell considering the fact that even the more literate races such as the gnomes seemed to lack any knowledge at all of how the world had been rent asunder.

"Most of us know about that; we not know about small wars, but we know about big wars. All tribes tell the story. Your people challenged my people; my people lost. But your people had bad mojo, and invited demons to the world. So you ripped the world in half to fight the demons."

As he spoke, he bore no hostility toward her. She didn't quite know how to react; Tirith had been born just after the wars between the Kaldorei and the twin troll empires, but she knew that jungle trolls and forest trolls in particular bore grudges even more strongly than dwarves. Every person from the Darkspear tribe that she'd met behaved in a racist manner toward her based on that conflict from so long ago, and yet Oacaxo spoke of it as if it didn't matter to him at all.

"That is...completely accurate. My people caused the Burning Legion to attack our planet. We blame our leaders and our magi, but we were all complicit. But you don't seem bothered."

Oacaxo just shrugged. "That was a long time ago, and your people big suffered for your own foolishness. It's over now, and we live in a different world. Not one land, but many lands floating in the sea. We must deal with this new world, so the old world not matter. What matters is that this land, the southern cone of Azeroth, belongs to jungle trolls. That is why I not hate your people for specific, but I hate Alliance, Horde and Zandalari."

Underneath his heavy brows, his relatively small, almost beady eyes shone intelligently, and she could tell that her shock at his attitude manifested itself in her expression. "I wish more people would focus on the here and now, and not ideologies and old conflicts," she murmured, a little embarrassed that her reactions had become so apparent after the loss of immortality. "So your problem is with the factions that intrude on jungle troll land, like these people?" she asked.

"Yes. All jungle trolls were one; we fall apart from foolishness, but it is our conflict. Let Skullsplitter fight Gurubashi, no problem. But these," he sneered while motioning toward the pale, blood drained body of the handless dwarf whose beard still smelled like gunpowder, "are intruders. I find tapir; big food for me. This land is jungle troll land; we fight each other for it. Alliance and Horde think they can compete too, and maybe twenty five of these people wanted to take my meat. Cowards; they surrounded me and began shouting. This is **my** land and **my** meat; so I throw the tapir's genitals at them." In true shameless fashion as his people were prone to, Oacaxo motioned toward his groin as if to demonstrate, causing the ever restrained night elf to blush slightly and look away. "The shoot me, but all Alliance and Horde the same; frail like monkeys. I hit them one time for them to die, maybe two times for tauren or ogres. Not like Zandalari or Bloodscalp; they need maybe six or seven hits, and they can hit back. These are all not trolls, so I kill them fast, but they have fire. So I remember my sleep spot for me on my weekend off from my duties at Xlatl; the waterfall is thick. So I hide there, maybe kill some more when they try to come. But I was tired...so tired. Maybe ready to feint when you came." He ran one of his thick, three fingered hands over his bristly mohawk in the same way he'd done when they first saw each other the previous year. "When you not come here, I would die, Tirith Nightshade."

Normally she would have been annoyed for him to thank her again when he'd already done so, but his nature was surprisingly affable, and it was easy to tolerate. "I had a feeling when they told the story to everyone back at the camp; they seemed confident that they could wait you out and burn you. And their story was the same as yours; they didn't even hide the fact that they started the problem and not you."

"You not guilty for killing other Alliance?"

"No...I thought I would, but I find that I really don't care. I just don't want to get in trouble. These were bad people, especially that little one over there," Tirith replied while pointing at Persephone's occasionally twitching body. "They attacked me first like they attacked you. I really don't feel anything."

"I hope you are okay when you return to your camp, Tirith Nightshade."

"Me too," she replied, and another silence settled between them. When she flexed her right arm, she still felt a bit of pain in addition to the cold sensation.

"Not yet," he warned her.

"Are we going to end up spending more days in the middle of the woods?" she joked.

"No, no, not need," he replied, _almost_ laughing in the process. "But wait. Burns are very bad, and the salve needs time. Just wait."

"Well, if you have time, then tell me...what happened the last time we met a few months ago? Did you get in trouble when you returned to..." She cleared her throat in preparation of pronouncing his village's name. "Hulatel?"

"Of course. I was late for my duties. Our elders told me to sleep on the ground for two weeks. They know that I prefer to sleep in the trees."

"Aren't you a little heavy for that?" she asked, attempting to tease him, though he didn't seem to notice.

"Some trees are big. I have my own tree in Xlatl, in the place for warriors." One of the last dying raid members groaned again, and he fidgeted. "Your people maybe will ask you for seeing the waterfall. You sit; I will finish these people, smash up the fire spears."

"Those are called canons."

"I will break them, set some fire. They ask you where two Skullsplitter corpses are, say maybe tigers eat them; I will take some corpses for these people back to my village, give for trophies."

Grimacing at the prospects no matter how much she despised the dead people around them, Tirith resigned herself to leaning against a riverside rock as she waited and he labored. "You don't have to do any of this...Oacaxo," she said, finally nailing the pronunciation of his name again.

"No. First time, I not need to help; I chose. This time, you chose; I must. The Loa keep balance." He promptly began toiling for another half an hour, looting and smashing up what he could and leaving the area in much worse shape than it would have been even if the fight had been fair.

Tirith's upper arm had almost gone numb by the time Oacaxo escorted her to the edge of the land boundary she considered unsafe for him to enter. According to him, that meant that the healing process was well underway; the scar would eventually become undetectable but the skin of her upper arm would also continue to feel fragile and sensitive for over two weeks. Many of the herbs used in her village caused similar effects, but not as intense. It felt unnerving for a part of her body to dangle next to her without any sense of touch, but it was certainly better than a permanent scar that would be susceptible to infection.

The brief hike had at least allowed her to relax her mind and wrap her head around what she'd just done. Considering the rather harrowing situation, he remained level headed and proved to possess a real talent for making casual small talk as they walked. By and large, the fact that he had almost just died was forgotten.

Ten minutes from the nearest road and fifteen minutes from Camp Freedom, Tirith stopped walking. "Alright, this is as far as I can let you go," she stated plainly as he came to a halt behind her. "You should be able to hurry back to the site and take whatever loot you need without being seen."

His long, more batlike ears swiveled around and his neck craned as he surveyed the area around them. "I hope you not encounter more enemies on your way." His gaze swept down to her, and he looked a bit disappointed. His kind didn't seem to find eye contact to be intense or necessarily aggressive, which she wasn't quite used to, though he at least didn't oggle her like the males of the humans tended to do. "And I hope that we not meet again like this."

Upon remembering their differing situation, she felt a touch of sadness as well. "Me too," she replied. The two of them both looked unsure of whether to just walk away or to bow, and she seized the opportunity to indulge in token sentiments she would have denied to herself just a few years before. "Oacaxo...are we friends?" she asked.

How long ears ruffled alongside his tall mohawk again, and he looked even more like a big blue zhevra. Confusion touched him briefly before he seemed to grasp what she was asking him. "Tirith Nightshade...I am a berserker of Skullsplitter. I am bred from arranged marriages from many parents past; my caste was decided before I was born. I have not place in my people without caste. I war; I fight; I death penalty. I not given time for socialize, and for my vacation every month, I just want to leave Xlatl and not see other people. You...are my only friend." Rather than reassured by the confession, he actually looked even sadder. "So, I hope we not meet again...I not want to fight you."

The same depressing effect hit her as well, and she almost regretted having spoken of the obvious out loud. "I know...and so I guess this is goodbye," she sighed.

"The people at Camp Freedom are your people, Tirith Nightshade. Maybe you are not happy there, but you must go." Shifting his heavy frame to leave, he snorted in disappointment again. "Goodbye."

The two of them parted ways, and this time Tirith forced herself not to look back as someone she liked more than anyone at her camp save Khadijah and William most likely walked out of her life for good. For the best, she told herself; whether she liked it or not, Camp Freedom would be her home for at least another year. And thereafter, she'd have to find a place to stay without a role in the military, as well as a new reason to live alongside either Soraya or Silviel's mother, Caledith. There was plenty of time...and that would be her new reality.

On her way back to the camp, she ruffled and even tangled her hair as much as she could, doing her best to look miserable. Dirt was smeared liberally on her armor to punctuate the blood stains already on there, and she made sure to rip up her cape. Her hair could be untangled in the shower; her armor could be washed; her cape could be replaced. If the whole charade better helped her to hide the fact that she'd killed a dozen people from her own faction - however much they deserved it - then so be it. She also made sure to perform sprints and stamina exercises on the balls of her feet on her way there to ensure that she looked as winded as possible. The entire facade was actually rather exciting; she felt a bit guilty admitting it to herself, but she quite liked the idea of ridding the world of a roaming band of mauraders in tabards who felt they had the right to shoot random people from other factions and the influence to avoid punishment.

Once she reached the camp and broke into the clearing, she already felt rather winded from the sprints, and didn't need to pretend to shamble toward the rather busy back entrance. Khadijah, William and several other people were there at the entrance waiting, and upon seeing her Khadijah rushed forward and already began to cast some sort of spell to cure burn wounds. The Light functioned similar to the arcane magic of the highborne in Tirith's eyes, and she cringed a bit at the sensation in her arm despite the superior healing effects it bore when compared to the salve.

"Sentinel Nightshade, what happened!" William asked while rushing to the silent, busy priestess' side, a legitimate concern for the night elf's wellbeing in his eyes rather than real interest in whatever battle had taken place. The cook from the canteen had left her post as well, and the diminutive human even looked worried despite not knowing Tirith personally.

Guiltily enjoying the buzz she felt as Khadijah massaged the air above her wound and worked the healing magic into the burnt flesh, Tirith actually took a moment to remember the story. "There were...two of them. A second one attacked us when we made a final push against the first one, and took us by surprise." It was the first time Tirith had knowingly lied in a long time, and she was surprised at how seriously much the growing crowd of civilian workers appeared to take her story. "Half of the raid was already dead by the time we arrived, killed by the first savage. The other half was killed by the second, and I was wounded when the fire canons were knocked over and exploded." She pointed to the burn wounds, healing salve and Light magic on her arm for effect, garnering shocked looks from those around.

"All of the others died?" William asked when Khadijah didn't, too engrossed in her work. "Every last one of them?"

For a split second, the concerned look in his blue eyes did cause her to feel a bit of remorse - only for the lie, and not in the least for the racist lot of marauders she'd killed. It quickly passed when she reminded herself that either way, they were all dead, and allowing them to be remembered as heroes was actually a favor she didn't even owe them. "Not immediately; others were burned alongside me when the canons exploded. But I understand little of field medicine, and could only rub more of this salve all over them in vain. But fear not; those...br...rave fighters were avenged." Reaching behind the latch on the inside of her shield, she pulled out the sinew necklace bearing four tusks of Zandalari trolls that the others assumed were 'headsplitters' and the crowd gasped in awe.

Having completed her work, Khadijah drank a few gulps from her waterskin and felt the dangling tusks between the fingers of her free hand. Whe. She'd drank her fill, she inspected the base of the natural ivory weapons. "I wish it didn't have to come to violence...but I'm glad that at least one of our comrades has turned out alright." The human let the tusks go and looked thoughtful for a moment. "You're sure we couldn't go back and save any of the others now?" she asked a little sadly.

Fortunately, William answered that question instead. "I've seen what these headsplitters can do...they're even worse than Horde. I don't think there will be much left to heal," he told his priestess softly before turning back to the crowd. "Someone inform the commander of what has transpired. And that Derrick fellow already grabbed a flight to the next settlement with his admirerers; well need a runner to inform him of what happened to his guild mates."

"He left without waiting to see if they were okay?" Tirith asked in legitimate disapproval.

Khadijah tried to roll her eyes, but seemed a little too blue in the mood to do so. "Apparently so," she murmured.

Even as William worked to disperse the crowd, Tirith managed to spy Marge's right hand man spying on them, and the armored human quickly disappeared when he realized that he'd been seen. Nervous regarding how her survival through two impromptu skirmishes would be viewed, Tirith tried to gain a bit of control over the situation.

"Khadijah, I think I can go along to inform Marge; I'm not in the best of shape right now, but I've calmed down and I think I can talk."

"It's probably better if she hears it from you anyway; she's not in a good mood right now," the human replied. "Bill...erm, William, will you be able to hold off on an inspection of the skirmish site while Tirith speaks to the commander?"

Motioning for them and the canteen cook to follow behind him back inside the camp, the knight shook his head. "She can speak to the commander and remain here; after a fight like what I imagine our dear sentinel hear went through, I imagine that it would be better for her to rest. I can lead a scout team myself as long as we can get a detailed description of the location."

"All too easy," Tirith breathed out, finally feeling the figurative burn in her aching muscles, more from the sprints she'd done on the hike there than the actual battle against the dozen kill stealers.

Inside the camp, most of the inhabitants had either returned to their daily chores or simply hadn't heard of the results of the skirmish at all. A few of them shot odd sideways glances at the haggard Amazon woman in dirty armor, but that wasn't a particularly strange sight considering their location; battered adventurers showed up at the gates all the time. Toward the south end of the camp, though, Tirith saw that they had been beaten to the punch; Marge was standing outside her office as her right hand human spoke to her in hushed tones.

The usually angry dwarf seemed unusually calm, even looking almost a bit pleasant as she smiled and nodded like a professional commanding officer would. The armored human footpad stopped talking when he noticed the colorful trio approach, and promptly took his leave from the commander before returning to some other post. Having angered Marge earlier on that same day, Khadijah hung back and allowed William to do the talking.

"I trust you've been informed of what happened, commander?" the knight asked as he stepped forward.

"Aye, that I have," Marge replied.

"I can organize a team for inspection of the site shortly, at your command. Sentinel Nightshade fought valiantly and even took some fairly grizzly trophies from the two enemy targets; however, she is nearing twenty plus hours without rest and initially bore a severe burn wound when she arrived, now healed thanks to Priestess Narume. I strongly advise a day of medical leave as a precautionary measure."

Against all logic and experience, Marge appeared rather agreeable. "Suggestion accepted, Sir Argyle; please recruit whomever you need from the barracks and do your best to return before sunset. We don't need to lose anybody else out here." She then turned to Khadijah calmly, as if the disagreement in the morning hadn't occurred. "Priestess Narume, great work. I'll need you to wait outside for a moment and escort Corporal Nightshade back to the barracks after a short debriefing."

Suspicion marked the female human's features as she considered the order for a moment despite having no real say in the matter. "Yes, commander," Khadijah replied cautiously.

Without even looking at Tirith, Marge motioned for William to leave and then entered the cabin that was used as the command center for the camp. Tirith followed her inside, catching a worried glance from Khadijah before she entered as well. The look in the woman's eyes sent another pang of guilt coursing through the night elf over lying to her two friends, and she had to remind herself that the alternative was much worse.

Seating herself behind her desk, Marge pointed to a chair large enough for Tirith to sit in and then folded her hands on the desk. The smile on her face was technically a polite one, but anyone who knew the angry dwarf well enough would notice the very faint, vague hint of malice pricking up at the corners of her mouth. Determined not to give the commander the debate she wanted, Tirith crawled into her shell until Marge couldn't stand to wait any longer.

"You've been planning this for a long time, haven't you?" Marge asked smugly.

After staring straight ahead long enough to annoy the commander and demonstrate that the woman wasn't in control, Tirith spoke in the most controlled, monotone sentinel voice she had in the past few years. "Please define 'this,' commander," she droned.

Smugness turned to frustration masked as smugness as Marge pursed her lips tightly enough to make her chin seem twice as large as its actual size. "So you're going to try and play this game, aren't you, Nightshade?" the dwarf tried again, using an annoyingly self assured tone of voice.

Stoic as always, Tirith resigned herself to the tit for tat match of passive aggressive behavior. "Of which game do you speak, commander?" she asked, punctuating her question with a slight sideways head tilt that caused Marge to visibly sneer.

The dwarf's reaction proved to be a surprise for once, though.

"Alright then, corporal...and you know what? Why don't you take two days of paid medical leave instead of one."

Tirith froze as she tried to read Marge's inexplicably triumphant demeanor. "That's it?" she asked.

"That's it."

At that, Marge promptly stood up and exited the command center from the back door, leaving Tirith to wonder what exactly had just happened. After a few minutes of confusion when Marge didn't return, she realized that the dwarf's strategy had changed, and there was no real reason to remain sitting there.

Outside the center, Khadijah was waiting with a concerned look on her face that faded when she saw Tirith in a decent mood. "That was it?" the human wondered out loud.

"That was it," Tirith replied as the two of them walked toward the women's barracks. "She's up to something; she just offered me two days off instead of one."

Displaying a forwardness she hadn't before, Khadijah frowned as they entered the barracks. "I don't like our commander," the priestess sighed. "I guess it's wrong of me to say that, but I don't think she's a good leader."

"You're preaching to the choir, priestess," Tirith mumbled.

After another health check by Khadijah, Tirith skipped a shower and simply discarded her armor on the floor space between her bunk and the wall. There would be plenty of time to wash up on her time off, in addition to figuring out what other plans Marge was concocting to spoil the night elf's plan to eventually be done with the camp.


	16. July 10, year 24

_July 10, year_ _-10,000_

Another rumble shook beneath Tirith's feet as they scrambled up the marble steps of the city's western bluffs. Her custom designed leather sandals began to split apart at the seams from the frantic twists and turns she and her second husband had taken when fleeing the demons. The once mottled white marble of the tiles on the public walkways was now stained red and green, and the bodies of the fallen lied strewn about. Demons were different; their corpses tended to dematerialize and burn out upon death, leaving only their fel green blood behind.

Higher and higher they climbed on the steps, putting more distance between them and their old neighborhood in Suramar. As the second most populous city of the empire after the capitol, Suramar was supposed to have been impenetrable. Even when faced by an imminent threat, the arrogance of the children of the stars prevented them from action. Their capitol fell and the masses died wailing for their queen as the blasted woman looked on and laughed, proving to the world that the mighty city of Zin-Azshari was not invincible after all. It should have served as a warning; but it didn't. And the corpses of their neighbors served as a bitter reminder of that fact as the two elves fled.

Mortal fear overpowered Tirith's instinct to wimper and whine, though a few tears did fall as the two of them dodged around corners to avoid the sounds of the horned, clawed, mutated creatures from the Twisting Nether. "We brought this onto ourselves," she sobbed while clinging to his arm behind the support pillar for an aqueduct. "There were so many signs."

Not even looking back at her, he continued to peer around as they both crouched low and scampered toward the more lightly populated suburbs on the outer edges of Suramar. "The Highborne brought this upon our planet; it was the corruption of their experiments that summoned the demons here," he whispered back at her.

"That's not true." She shook her head in defiance and sniffled a bit before continuing. "We all knew, my love; you, me, all of our people. We could have stopped them and we did nothing. Suramar could have sent an entire garrison of troops to save Zin-Azshari from the Burning Legion; and yet we did nothing. We said nothing while the Highborne were conducting their experiments. We worshipped the queen like a goddess when her excess and edicts proved she was nothing but a madwoman." Tirith nearly tripped over her expensive silk dress, now covered in the blood of demons, neighbors and even a bit of her own, and he had to reach back and help her over the marble wall at the top of the public staircase leading between all the palatial villas and toward level ground. "It isn't just the Highborne's fault; the arrogance and complacency of all our people caused this."

He grumbled but didn't provide any sort of retort as they moved from tiled ground to grass and gardens marking the end of the main urban area. Between the trees they could observe a relative calm as more refugees evacuated the city, leaving their homes to burn and their friends and even some family members to face the wrath of the Legion in the streets below. It couldn't have been later in the day than the late afternoon, and yet the sky was almost grey from all the smoke and ash. All along the paved highway just beyond the trees, the refugees lined up, directed by injured and maimed soldiers directing them toward other cities in the case of the weak and the sick, or toward the capitol in the case of those who could still fight.

Tirith looked back behind them one last time. The waves in the Well of Eternity shimmered as fires, both natural and fel, devoured Suramar and all she'd known for her entire three thousand years of life. The empire of the Kaldorei was supposed to have been undefeatable; even the barbaric twin empires of the Amani and the Gurubashi had fallen before them, and yet there they stood, brought to their knees as their expensive homes, their exquisite galleries and opera houses and the immeasurable libraries their high civilization had developed crumbled to dust, mocking them for their gluttony, sloth and frivolity. That Tirith had been forced to watch while felhounds upended the tomb of her parents and feasted upon the corpses was only the beginning; seeing her friends of over a thousand years dragged out into the streets and murdered for the amusement of the unholy army made that beginning even worse. And by the sounds of the screams of those they and all their people abandoned in their impotency and cowardice, the end wasn't anywhere in sight. Best friends ditched one another, so great was their terror, and every person simply tried to save themselves and flee. Their society would never rise from the ashes, just like those societies they'd aggressively invaded themselves just before Tirith's birth; of that retribution, she was sure.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and he began to tug her toward the relative safety of the highway. "It's over; no matter whose fault it is, Suramar is over. We can't stay here." He continued to lead her away, wrapping his bruised arm around her shoulder and carrying the single water jug and bag of grapes they managed to take with them when exiting through the back window of their villa.

Glancing at the Well one last time, she was stung with an incredible feeling of foolishness. They all knew the stories of the ancestors; theirs was a people who lived only a few centuries at maximum. How could they have been so obtuse as to ignore the fact that so many of them were now millennia old? Her parents had died of old age, but even they had aged so slowly after drinking the waters of the Well day in and day out. Instead, their people took it for granted, reveled in their own ignorance and lived every day as if the world wound end if they didn't attend enough wine and cheese tasting events.

Damn that accursed lake, she thought to herself as the two of them dashed through the trees toward the nearest group of haggard soldiers, and damn her and her people for their lethargy. Abandoning their city and their entire lives, they became faceless members of the devastated throngs, joining a colum several miles long of once proud children of the stars donning ripped clothing, dragging their bare feet as people wailed for those they'd lost.

When they approached, one of the soldiers directing refugees in three separate columns pointed at her husband using a single unsevered arm. "You! You're capable of marching," the soldier barked at him in a hoarse voice. "The column to the capitol is that way; the one known as Stormrage has organized a resistance force there backed up by the tauren and dwarves. We need every able bodied man we have at our disposal."

The couple froze, Tirith's shoulders already shaking. Selective mutism had always been her best defense mechanism, though this time she felt trapped as she found herself unable to scream in agony at the thought of separation. Everything had been taken from her; everything. Even if her second marriage was only marginally more tolerable than the first, even if the two of them had argued about nothing shortly before the screams of their neighbors started, he was all she had left. Her parents died long ago; her son form her first marriage lived in...the capitol. The only surviving members of the Nightshade clan were distant relatives she visited once a century or so. Weak, trembling fingers tried to grip on to her husband's arm until the very last second.

"The dragonflights have fallen; what use is there?" he asked the soldier, though still stepping forward obediently.

The soldier continued directing women and children away, in the direction of Hajiri. "The demigod, Cenarius, has agreed to aid our people, alongside our allies from among the lesser races," the one armed man replied, unable to let go of their people's haughty racism even after having been bested. "Citizen, we must do our best; for the only alternative is to line up for the slaughter. Our planet needs you." A few more men from nearby left family members behind as they followed in the direction that the soldier was pointing, joining the column of able bodied civilians turned militiamen pushing themselves forward toward Zin-Azshari.

Her husband stepped off to the side and held her in his arms. The dreadful lack of sorrow on his face terrified her, as if he knew the fate most of them were already marching toward. "They're right. I have to try; I can't just leave the others to save myself."

"What about your wife?" Tirith asked, almost unable to force the words out of her throat. "What will become of me if you don't return?"

His sullen gaze told her that he'd forced himself to detach in the blink of an eye. "You can survive; I know you can. But if we lose this war, we all become slaves to the Legion, or dead if we're lucky." Another wave of refugees passed by, and she could already tell that his attention was no longer with her. "I will do my best to find your son while there. Follow the others to Hajiri; I will try my best to find you." There were no lofty promises or empty words as he let go of her arms and kissed her hand one last time; theirs was a relationship based on realism.

She didn't even tell him that she loved him as he left; neither of them had used those words in decades. She wasn't entirely sure if they still felt that way. Their marriage was stable for the most part, even if their passion had waned long ago. In a way, the lack of pretense had been the secret to the success of her second try. There were no illusions, there was no pretending; just an occasionally sour but always stabilizing realism. And as she watched him walk away alongside the rest of the men who retained two functioning legs, that realism stung her once more: she was alone again. Her grown son was almost assuredly dead, alongside his father; her current husband was most likely marching off to join both of their sets of parents in the afterlife, throwing himself against endless waves of demons. She was the last surviving member of her end of the Nightshade clan.

Among the rest of the women, children, sick and elderly, Tirith found herself alone on the long, hard road out of hell and toward Hajiri. There was no denial of her situation. A few of her friends may have survived, but they would be fleeing for their own lives. If she wanted to survive, it would have to be by her own efforts if she wanted it to be on her own terms.

* * *

 _July 10, year 24_

Tirith woke up alone that late afternoon, relatively well rested though still disturbed from her sleep. There was nobody else in the women's barracks, and even the curtains and shudders had been left closed by her bunkmates to keep the sunlight out for her. The thin bedcovers were inviting and not too warm in the tropical heat, and she very well could have slept longer. That is, if it weren't for the sound of three hushed voices murmuring outside the barracks, just on the other side of the wall next to the door. Her sensitive ears never failed her: three people were waiting for someone, unmoving, and didn't want to be heard.

But if they didn't want to be heard, then she knew that meant she'd better listen. Experience had taught her that ethics could be bent and envelopes pushed for the sake of self preservation; it also taught her not to trust anyone outside the twenty four women of her grove in an absolute sense. Unperturbed by the idea of spying on the conversations of others if it meant protecting herself, Tirith remained motionless beneath the covers and focused her strong sense of hearing.

"Yes, the summons do read very clearly; they're definitely taking this seriously," sounded off the voice of the armored human that functioned as the camp commander's right hand man. "So we at least know that we can force her to make the trip to the new observation post."

Observation post?

The camp commander herself sounded rather cautious. "They're taking the accusation seriously; that doesn't mean that they'll dig deep enough or investigate thoroughly enough. For the time being, those donkey eared savages are members of the Alliance; I'm sure this bitch can just whine to that friend of hers in Stormwind again and try to pull a nepotism save," Marge sneered in a speaking volume that she probably thought was quiet.

Gears began turning. Tirith knew they were talking about her, and that they were worried about Soraya defending her against an administrative assault. But when? How?

A third voice, this one unfamiliar, followed the first two. "At the bare minimum, you can start to build a long term case against her," said an older sounding male gnome. While less obviously passionate about the topic, the small man spoke in earnest and was undoubtedly some contact of Marge's brought in to help her defame yet another subordinate. "Even if the most that comes out of this is some form of citation for a tendency to walk into dangerous situations, or abuse of government allowances for preventative medical leave - or both - then that's still a win."

The most that comes out of what?

"Tendency to walk into dangerous situations..." repeated the human lapdog almost wistfully. "That sounds pretty good!"

"We can't let it drag out for too long; old donkey ears in there has less than a year before her retirement," Marge retorted, her voice laced with the sort of concern that the camp commander never displayed for actual issues of importance such as the clogged latrines or the lack of dental hygiene supplies. "If we want to teach her a lesson in respect, then we need to make sure that we can do it before then." The conversation died down just at the same time that Tirith could hear the heavy footsteps of a male dwarf thumping on the ground on the other side of the next building over. The man wouldn't have been able to see the group, and their silence confirmed that they were speaking in secret; they clearly didn't want anybody else to hear them. Once the footsteps trailed off, the female dwarf continued. "Isn't there a surer method to stack the cards against her?"

"Well, will Derrick be waiting there to file his complaint?" asked the gnome.

Derrick...oh by the goddess, Tirith thought while literally pulling the covers over her head.

"He's there now, and he won't be going anywhere. He's upset and was borderline hysterical at first; he blames the moon elf for the loss of his two guildmates entirely," replied the weasely human.

"Unlike poor Persephone; her idiot of a father actually wrote back to me claiming that his daughter died serving the Stormwind army and that it wasn't anybody's fault," scoffed Marge. "He wasn't even interested in hearing about the pseudo elf that was conveniently present when she died.

Tirith fidgeted beneath the covers; she actually was guilty of killing Persephone, though only in self defense. She couldn't prove that, of course, and hoped that Marge continued to think that she was somehow smart enough to fabricate a story like that (which just happened to be true) against Tirith, rather than realizing that Tirith had actually killed the annoying half elf. More so than any mission in the past few centuries, the night elf held absolutely still on her bed, even controlling her breathing so as not to create any noise.

"The fact that Derrick is hysterical will work in our favor; hopefully, he'll accuse her of all sorts of crazy things. The more shit we can throw on the wall, the better," said the gnome without a hint of malice or glee. It was as if the whole thing was some sort of monotonous clerical process to him.

Sighing and inadvertently snorting, Marge sounded audibly exasperated. "Who would have thought that punishing one insolent underling would be so much work. I'll just be happy when that glowing eyed freak is paying for her bad attitude." There was another pause despite the fact that nobody else approached the group. "Now if she would only wake up and get out here for her surprise party," the dwarf added.

Inside the barracks, Tirith easily connected the dots. Marge and her lapdog had brought an outsider in order to defame her, harass her and give her a hard time in general. That wasn't anything new except for the fact that Derrick, the derelict leader of the guild in a red and yellow tabard, was apparently blaming her for the loss of his two colleagues. She didn't know anything about the observation post...but she ventured a guess that Marge had legally devised a way to send her there. And now the three slanderers were waiting just outside the door to assault her with the news.

Not even bothering to stretch, Tirith merely sank beneath the covers and breathed deeply. She'd obviusly survived much worse than that, though in all her years of servitude to nature, she'd never been guilty of insubordination. The accusation was new to her, and dealing with it gracefully would be the only potential hurdle. But if the camp commander was trying to harass Tirith, then she'd harass the short, angry dwarf right back.

Starting by doing the best thing she could do if they were waiting out there for her. Closing her eyes, Tirith relaxed and fell back asleep, determined to force the trio to wait on her as long as realistically possible.

Gone were the memories of a civilization lost and rampaging demons. For at least another hour and a half or so, Tirith slumbered easily and dreamt of abstract images and the feeling of the wind running through her hair while flying in a hippogriff. Altogether pleasant and soothing, her dreams even helped her not to awaken roughly when the voices outside raised in volume.

"Commander, I can't stress how inappropriate this is," urged the voice of William urgently. For the first time, the knight sounded irate when he addressed the camp's commander; knowing the chivalric codes that the humans lived by, Tirith ventured a guess that it was the most forward manner in which he'd ever spoken to Marge.

Right next to him was Khadijah, also speaking in an uncharacteristically serious way. "And I don't know what this...this Doctor Finklesnap is talking about, but I've never heard of a machine that can accurately tell if someone is lying or not," the priestess added to the knight's protest.

Doctor Finklesnap was apparently the gnome from before, as the tiny man's retort sounded offended and shocked. "What? What? Everybody uses this technology now, it's normal! I'll have you know that I'm a trained professional in lie detector tests!"

"It's a matter of procedure no matter what any of us think," Marge replied herself, sounding formal and objective as the woman worked her acting skills the best she could. "This process has already been set into motion; it's out of my hands now." The sound of someone stuttering was heard, though the person apparently muffled their own words and Tirith couldn't quite tell who it was before Marge continued. "I can assure you that our colleague will not be further penalized for the next two days off; this is an official summons, sanctioned at the attaché's office back in Stormwind itself, and thus it's considered official business."

Images of the haughty high elf clerk flashed through Tirith's mind as she silently stretched beneath the covers, spying for as long as the reasonably could before rising from bed. The moon had obviously risen judging by the chirps of crickets outside, and it was technically as late as was licit for her to wake up anyway. Under her bed, she was able to fish out a loose pair of cotton pants and a shirt without looking as she listened to the gradually degenerating conversation.

"This woman is a cause for concern; every expedition she accompanies goes horribly wrong! She's a terrible protector!" scoffed the armored human lapdog.

"What!" Khadijah snapped.

"Now wait just a minute, that's crossing the line!" William fired off at his human counterpart. The knight's voice had almost been raised to a yell, and since William raised his voice so rarely and never, ever used foul language, the mere volume caused a noticeable effect on the demeanor of the others. "Sentinel Nightshade has accompanied us on numerous expeditions - I've lost count by now - and statistically speaking, only a tiny fraction of them have yielded poor results. Only two of them, to be exact."

"That's two too many," the lapdog retorted weakly.

"Call it what you want, but don't claim it's _every_ expedition, that's blatant intellectual dishonesty."

The gnome tried to intervene next, rushing to save his comrade who now appeared to be an unreliable witness. "If I understand the situation correctly, Corporal Nightshade was present for the deaths of more than a dozen members of the Alliance. That's obviously a cause for concern."

"I've held a far higher number of dying colleagues than that; if you want to investigate somebody, investigate me!" William answered back, becoming more forceful by the minute.

"We don't want to investigate anybody; the attaché back in Stormwind decided to file this motion after I merely did my job and informed them of all latest occurrences here in and around Camp Freedom." The light twinge of smugness in Marge's voice betrayed her spitefulness once again. "It's out of my hands."

Choosing the lull in the conversation to make her presence known, Tirith stood up, dressed herself and strode over to the door soundlessly and before anyone else had a chance to speak. The gnome yelped and leapt away when she opened the door, preventing her from getting a good look at him other than noticing that he wasn't dressed like a tinker or mechanic and that he had dark blue hair similar to her own. Khadijah and William, both dressed in plainclothes and looking rather unhappy, stared down Marge and her lapdog, both of whom were armored and looking rather shocked to see the night elf towering over them.

"Am I to understand that my presence is needed?" she asked nonchalantly, making sure to stare at the human lapdog until the man looked away.

When Khadijah and William both looked at Marge, the camp commander realized that she had to fess up at an inopportune moment. "Soldier, your testimony is required at the new observation post to the south. There is an...investigation into the incident a week ago." Despite her earlier fury, the commander's tone of voice almost sounded unsure after having been confronted by two of her most senior and experienced staff members. Neither Khadijah nor William were far behind Marge in rank, and couldn't easily be bullied; nor would their personalities conducive to such treatment.

Like a broken record, numbers flowed through Tirith's mind like waves as she tried to calculate how many times older she was than all the higher ranking staff members around her.

Her train of thought was interrupted by Khadijah's continued protests. "It needs to be made absolutely clear that the goal of such an investigation is to reach the truth, and not to incriminate anybody," the priestess insisted. Every time the topic came up, Tirith felt a pang of guilt again; not for having slaughtered a gang of racist criminals, but for having found no choice other than lie to people who obviously cared for her.

No longer able to accept the priestess or the knight stressing themselves out for her sake, Tirith intervened before anybody else had the chance to continue the back and forth debate.

"I'm absolutely delighted to assist in the completion of such an endeavor," Tirith stated cheerily in an accent that was lighter than her normal one. "In fact, since this is official business and I have official permission to leave, that means that I am officially on break, per regulations regarding military personnel summoned for an appearance at a remote location with less than twenty four hours notice. Keeping that official, legal regulation in mind, I do believe that I'll gear up and head for the observation post... _right now_."

Everybody looked shocked, though eventually both William and Marge shifted. The rugged knight obviously knew what Tirith was planning, and flashed a faint smile tinged with surprise and confusion as he witnessed the night elf hatch a plot that he likely found devious in a clever way. On the other hand, Marge became livid, once again proving that the angry dwarf was far easier to harass than the woman let on.

"Wha...wait a minute, it's the middle of the night!" Doctor Finklesnap cried.

"And my people are nocturnal. I'll make relatively good time, and by the morning I'll even have reached the observation post. In fact, that means I'll have used personal time in order to travel for an official investigation. I'm sure that will be of great help to whatever investigator is waiting for me."

This time, even Khadijah - younger than William and a little bit less streetwise - understood. "What a splendid idea!" she practically cheered.

"No! Tirith, no!" Marge hissed.

"Corporal Nightshade, please."

"Why, you...argh...soldier, you don't even know where the observation post is!"

The lapdog's eyes lit up inside of his helmet. "Which means you can't go yet!"

"Sure I can; I know that it's to the south. I'll just scout until I hear the sounds of the camp. If I get lost, well, then retrieving me will simply be our camp's responsibility since I won't be under the jurisdiction of any other outpost until I formally register there. I'm sure you'll be able to organize a search party, Commander Margaret." For the first time in a very long time, Tirith grinned cheekily, knowing that she'd found a way to force the hands of Marge and her cronies. "That is, of course, unless a guide comes with me. Right now. Because I'm officially on break until the morning, and I will use my break to head south. Period."

At that, Khadijah actually lifted her hands from her sides parallel to each other, likely wanting to literally clap for the performance but stopping herself short. William even began to walk away, obviously confident that his comrade had proven able to defend herself through legal means. The gnome looked to the dwarf for some sort of help, but to no avail.

"Damnit...gods damnit...take the Doctor here and escort that troublemaker to the outpost!" Marge grumbled, no longer hiding her dislike for Tirith in front of the others.

Doctor Finklesnap, however, didn't appear pleased. "Wait, Commander, I can't travel through the jungle at night! What if I have to deal with robbers or raptors or the working class!"

"Doctor, nobody else knows how to get there exactly other than you!" Marge quickly turned to her human lapdog thereafter. "Find someone on break to go with you! Two or three! Make this happen!"

By the time Tirith reached the armory, she could already hear the footsteps of the priestess and the knight approaching the canteen area, leaving behind the argument between the would be conspirators. Prior to her departure, she'd make sure to thank them profusely; she owed it to them both after all they'd done for her.

They'd done too much, in fact. While they were kind, they were not her, and her problems were not theirs. Tirith would survive this hump and any others Marge tossed her way before retirement, but on her own terms; her burdens could belong to nobody else, and the solutions could come from nobody else. As she donned her armor for the trip, she did her best to breathe deep, remain calm and in her spare time think of more ways to make Marge's attempts at browbeating as difficult as possible. She only hoped that a supposed test that could detect lies turned out to be as impossible as it sounded.


	17. July 11, year 24

_July 11, year 24_

The difference between nocturnal and diurnal was an interesting one. Differences in sleep schedules could be mitigated by naps; while they didn't totally make up for lost sleep, they did help. The presence of night owls among the outlanders and daywalkers among the night elves complicated matters. And when the various different groups and preference holders were forced to work together, the situation became even more odd.

Considering the fact that it was now the wee hours of the morning, Tirith didn't have difficulty sleeping once they reached the unnamed observation outpost. Built on a high hill breaking out through the canopy and overlooking a valley entirely concealed by rainforest trees, the place was underdeveloped and fortunately had more infrastructure than its low population of military and other government staff actually needed; the absolute lack of private business meant that standardized latrines, showers and storage units were in healthy supply, and Tirith even managed to make up for a good amount of sleep that she would surely be losing soon. Unlike Camp Freedom, she even received her own private bedroom while waiting for her scheduled appointment with the investigator. It was small and cramped for her large, seven and a half foot tall frame, but at least she didn't have to share it with anybody.

And so she caught up on sleep she knew that she'd miss during the morning meeting as part of the investigation. Once through, she'd have another day off from her duties, and intended to take full advantage of that by sleeping in. Knowledge that she'd forced Doctor Finklesnap and Marge's human lapdog to lose an entire night of sleep to escort her to the outpost only added to her comfortable, elated feeling. The way they'd huffed and panted as they frantically struggled to keep up with her pace, alongside two more human escorts that had been sent along, was music to her ears. She could almost hear it playing out again when the knock came on the door of her little room.

"Corporal...Nightshade, I believe it is...Agent Smithers will see you now."

The voice sounded like it belonged to a younger human male, much more pleasant sounding than the lapdog, and the lad didn't even sound like he was in a hurry. Regardless, she saw no reason to keep him or the agent leading the investigation waiting like she'd done to Marge; as far as she knew, these fellows were only doing their jobs.

"I'm awake, sir; if I may have a few minutes to compose myself," she replied toward the door, stretching and rubbing her eyes after her nap.

"Take all the time you need, Corporal; the ladies' latrine is right around the corner and it's been freshly cleaned."

Ladies' latrine? So she wouldn't have to share a trio of holes in the ground with every other inhabitant of the observation post? She was almost beginning to wish that she could serve out the remainder of her service at this place rather than Camp Freedom.

Getting out of bed proved to be tricky at first. Tirith was so tall that the soles of her feet rested against the surface of the door, and the top of her head pressed into the corner of the room. Then she remembered that the room on one side of her was unoccupied and the other contained Marge's human lapdog, and Tirith simply banged against the walls to brace herself and stand up, creating as much ruckus as she could in order to further punish and disorient the armored weasel. Hopefully, he'd think twice before conspiring to get Tirith in trouble out of spite again.

Outside, the small human youth wore the off duty uniform of an Alliance soldier and stood up straight, carrying an air of professionalism similar to Sir William back at her own camp despite the age disparity between the two. The guest rooms were simple structures built of unpainted plywood, and as the young man led her through the grassy, undeveloped camp, she began to feel as if she were in the middle of a construction zone. The observation deck overlooking the valley contained a few gnomes adjusting a telescope and a few other contraptions, and the high elevation of the outpost became very apparent.

Tirith didn't notice much else about the camp due to her awe at the stunning view of the rainforest in the valley below. It wasn't quite the same as Feralas, but was very close, and ended too abruptly when she realized that the young man had led her to the only painted building in the half unfinished camp.

"Right inside here, please...Private Stevenson?" the young man said to a young woman wearing the same uniform, and the two humans that looked like they might be siblings exchanged posts, the young woman passing them as she exited without saying a word.

"Ah yes, Corporal...Nightshade, I presume?" asked the dull voice of a bored sounding human from the end of the building.

Inside there only appeared to be a single long room and two shut closets in the back. Sawdust lied on the floor, though the walls had been painted and the long table looked rather expensive, at least to a person from a culture where furniture was grown rather than built and consequently knew nothing of carpentry. An older, grey haired human male wearing a uniform bearing no insignia at all sat at the end of the table next to an armed dwarven attendant. Doctor Finklesnap was also seated, fiddling with some sort of crystal powered contraption and looking absolutely haggard and frustrated.

"Yes...I am the one called Corpral Nightshade," she replied, saluting the man despite not knowing his rank. "Are you the one called Agent Smithers?"

"That is correct, soldier. Please, have a seat." The man motioned toward a chair opposite him and the gnomish doctor, and she promptly sat down. "As a matter of protocol, I'm going to review with you the reason for our little meeting today. Some of it might sound familiar or even boring to you, but obviously such regulations are in place for the benefit of all."

"Absolutely, sir," Tirith agreed, garnering a respectful smile from the agent that rather annoyed Doctor Finklesnap.

"Alright, my name is Agent Smithers of SI:7. I've been sent here to investigate a disturbance; one of several my department is currently examining. This observation post is actually run entirely by the Stormwind Army, but it functions based on supplementary manpower from both Ironforge as well as my department. Does any of this sound familiar to you?"

"Stormwind and Ironforge, yes. I'm not familiar with your department."

"Good; to be honest, we prefer remaining low key anyway. So...hey, is that thing ready yet?"

The gnome continued setting up what appeared to be a metal square containing wires, crystals and bearing some sort of cords ending in enchanted rings. "Just about, sir," Doctor Finklesnap replied, sweat dripping down his brow and into his little bloodshot eyes.

"Right. So anyway, Corporal, our job is to investigate disturbances that might be considered sensitive issues. As you might know, there was an incident about a week ago that resulted in multiple deaths. We're in a dangerous remote zone here so tragedies occur, but one registered guild has ceased to exist while another lost two important officers. So what my department is doing, is to interview any possible witnesses who were last in contact with the victims. That's why you're here, and why the good Doctor is here as well."

Tirith turned her head to examine the shaky gnome, who appeared winded just from adjusting his mechanical contraption. "And this machine, I presume, is to be used during the questioning?" she asked in a flat, formal tone. The gnome grinned proudly, unaware that she already knew of his intentions.

"This device is referred to as an assurance guarantor," Agent Smithers explained in disinterest contrasting to Finklesnap's enthusiasm. "We request that all interviewees agree to its usage per standard procedure. You would only need to wear the rings there on your three middle fingers for the duration of the interview, and there are no side effects that we have discovered."

Merely holding her hand out toward the gnome as a sign of consent, Tirith waited quietly, doing her best to add more effort to the conspirators no matter how small. At first Finklesnap didn't seem to understand, but when Smithers cast an impatient sideways glance his way, the implication was clear. "You just need to wear these three rings," he said in a rather tired and slightly irritated voice while holding up the cords attached to the enchanted rings.

"I don't know how."

"What the...? Oh, fine," the gnome huffed.

Due to his small stature, he had to stand in his chair, feed the cords across the table so they'd stop sliding off, get down out of his chair and nearly fall over in the process, jog the considerable (for gnomes) short distance around the table, fit the rings on Tirith's much larger fingers, jog back around the table and climb up into his chair again. By the end of the brief ordeal, the sleep deprived gnome looked ready to pass out.

"Is everything ready?" Smithers asked.

"What? Yes, look!" Finklesnap huffed. Immediately after he realized that he was speaking to someone of considerable rank, and shrank in his high chair even more.

After having stared down Finklesnap sufficiently, Smithers turned back to Tirith wearing a blank, formal expression. "Let's proceed; I'm sure that you have matters to attend to, as do the good Doctor and myself." Finklesnap looked up as if he was confused at first, but then settled down as if he remembered. "Let me start by asking you, Corporal: is your name Tirith Nightshade?"

"Yes."

Finklesnap's head began to rotate all around as he manipulated buttons and wires on the supposed lie detector contraption. Smithers appeared to ignore him and continued. "Just to ensure that the guarantor has been calibrated properly, I need to ask a question, and I'll need you to answer dishonestly. Are you actually Lady Proudmoore in disguise?" he asked with a very faint smile.

"Yes."

An awkward silence ensued when the machine gave no indication of dishonest, and Finklesnap appeared to grow a bit flustered. "I'm working on it. She must be a very talented liar."

"I do hope that you're able to sort the issue out," she told the gnome in a winning performance mimicking Marge's typical passive aggressive politeness. Smithers didn't seem to notice, but Finklesnap certainly did.

"He'd better; he'll need to be leaving along with me in less than an hour, so we don't have time," Smithers said openly, displaying a slight criticism that seemed unbecoming of his stoic demeanor. Finklesnap became even more nervous, especially when Smithers didn't slow down for him. "Alright, we can move on to the questions regarding the incident; this won't take long. Corporal, were you present when the first dozen citizens were slain by the monster?"

"No, I wasn't."

"So you left alongside two members of the guild called...ah..." Smithers sighed and looked at a note card in his hands in disappointment. "A guild called the Awesome Dudes?"

"I'm not sure of the name; they wore red and yellow tabards that made them very easy to see."

"Those are them. So you left alongside two of them?"

"Yes. Two of them, a scout for the other guild and a mage from Camp Freedom."

"Good; that's good to know. These interviews are always much easier when the interviewees are cooperative," he complimented her, much to the underslept, overworked gnome's chagrin. "And you were present when the other dozen citizens were slain by _two_ separate members of the Horde?"

"No."

"She's lying! She's lying!" cried Finklesnap.

Smithers silenced him quickly. "Doctor, the machine hasn't indicated as such, and even if an interviewee were, I don't need comments from the peanut gallery," Smithers told him, causing the irate gnome to sink into his chair once more. "So Corporal, you mean to say that you _weren't_ present when the others were slain?"

"No, I mean to say that they weren't slain by two members of the Horde. But I was present when they were killed."

"So the killers were not members of the Horde, then?"

"That is correct; the Skullsplitter tribe are not members of the Horde," Tirith replied.

That comment seemed to bother the ignorant doctor just a little bit too much. "Trolls are in the Horde, genius-"

"Doctor, take a break until the next interview," Smithers insisted in a very stern voice. A tense staredown ensued during which Finklesnap gradually backed down and even cringed under the agent's gaze; Smithers was obviously someone very important of the increasingly unlikeable Finklesnap backed off so easily, and an awkward silence filled the room again until the door fell shut behind Tirith. The gnome began ranting and raving to another of his own kind plus a human and dwarf outside, which Smithers merely ignored. "I apologize for that, Corporal."

"It had nothing to do with you; I only hope that I don't end up consuming too much of your time."

Smithers pulled back the sleeve of his uniform to check a gnomish device known as a wristwatch. His expression turned from one of pleasant formality to professional concern as he did so. "Me too; I need to speak to a representative from that guild just outside, and then Finklesnap and myself need to attend to a situation in the Plaguelands. Alright anyway, let's move on and we can wrap this up. Corporal, despite what you just witnessed, we are aware that the Skullsplitter tribe are hostile to all other entities, but your camp's commander failed to mention the specific tribe of the perpetrators. All the same, you were present for the slayings, correct?"

"Unfortunately yes. The aftermath was quite gruesome; I was the only survivor."

"And your status as sole survivor during the incident last week has no connection at all to your status as one of two survivors during a previous excursion four months ago?"

"The only connection was that our mage, Persephone, was present for both; she abandoned me the first time, but tries to stick by to the very end this last time. She paid for her actions with her life." Tirith felt a small pain in her stomach at having to lie to protect herself, but the realization of what the alternative was quickly caused it to pass.

"Do you believe that connection was significant?"

"Only to her own wellbeing, Agent; it did not affect the overall outcome of either incident."

For a few seconds, Smithers glanced over at the silent machine in a similar manner to how she'd seen furbolgs glance at the new technology introduced by the Alliance when they didn't understand it and weren't interested in understanding it. The commotion outside the office increased in volume again, and the agent looked positively perturbed.

"Alright, I think we've heard enough," Smithers sighed while motioning for the young human to remove the enchanted rings from Tirith's fingers. "It's all a matter of procedure, of course; we're required to file statements from all those involved when a regional commander raises a red flag."

"But of course."

"So as of now, your part in the investigation has concluded. We thank you for your cooperation, and I must inform you that as a member of the general military staff, you'll have access to the outpost's facilities until the morning. There are currently no flights available back to Camp Freedom, so please check your scheduled return to your duties and plan accordingly."

"Absolutely; and thank you for making this process so comfortable, Agent," Tirith replied while standing to shake the man's hand. She disliked the skin on skin gesture - especially with a man - but his positive reaction to her initiative told her that it was the right thing to do.

"That's part of the job; our department works to keep all other branches of the government working. Now, if you'll excuse me," Smithers added while waving his hand for her to follow him toward the door, "the good Doctor and I must leave within the hour and we still have more interviews to cond-"

His sentence was cut off as a hysterical human male wearing a red and yellow tabard opened the door, revealing the distracted and then furious young human female who was arguing with several small people when the brightly colored idiot had flung open the door bearing a 'do not enter' sign.

"That's why, I demand to - that's her! That's the one who got my guildies killed!" cried the insufferable human that Tirith remembered as Derrick. His leg looked miraculously and suspiciously healthy and unhurt after only a little over a week had elapsed.

"Hey! I said no entry!" the pissed off young woman shouted as she left the argument she'd been having with the young dwarf and gnome women that Tirith recognized as the guild groupies from before.

"Two good men are dead, can't you arrest somebody!" the tiny gnomish groupie screeched in a not so tiny voice at nobody in particular.

Also in the mood to talk for the sake of talking, the young dwarf began to engage in a two way argument with Finklesnap and the young human male who was barring Derrick from entry. Agent Smithers pushed past and stared down the leader of the...ugh...Awesome Dudes. Tirith was loathe even to think that name in full.

"Officer, this woman is clearly guilty of dereliction of duty or something like that; why weren't by comrades saved-"

"One more word and I'll have you exiled to Tol Barad."

Agent Smithers spoke in a low, clam voice, as if his voice became quieter rather than louder when his anger increased. Not even the king of the humans himself, whoever he was at the time, could likely have silenced a loudmouth like Derrick but when Smithers made a very direct threat, a pleasant silence filled the area that the night elf wished would never end in such a place.

"You are here at the behest of SI:7, not because you think you want to be here," Smithers continued. "You will speak when spoken to and if you break this rule one time, I'll bring forward witnesses to testify that you stole in excess of one thousand gold pieces from our vault here, which is enough to charge you with grand larceny and transfer you to any prison in the Eastern Kingdoms." Without even asking whether Derrick understood or not, Smithers straightened up to address the group. "Private Stevenson, please see to it that these two other...witnesses are properly seated and given glasses of drinking water. Corporal, you're free to your own devices. And you, sir, follow the good Doctor and myself inside."

"Yes sir," Derrick mumbled in defeat.

Everyone promptly did as they were told under the auspices of Agent Smithers' icy glare and oh so slightly twitching goatee as he grit his teeth for a bit. No longer concerned with what was happening, Tirith walked back to the room she'd been provided with, triumphant in the knowledge that not only had Marge's plan been thwarted, but her co conspirator, Doctor Finklesnap, had also been made to look like a fool. The ridiculous mourners for two of the two dozen dead citizens certainly didn't help the case against the night elf either.

Grinning slyly to herself, Tirith breathed easier knowing that another bump in the road had been avoided. Making sure to create as much noise as possible when settling in to finally have a good day's sleep - the human lapdog the next room over audibly gasped and nearly fell out of his bed - Tirith relaxed, knowing that Marge would cause more bumps in that road to retirement but that she was slowly learning how to deal with the angry dwarf.

Tirith's sleep contained dreams, but none of them were concrete. Colors and shapes wafted around like clouds shimmering across the night sky. It was almost intoxicating, watching and experiencing all the sensations as she felt her body drift for hours. She could have remained in such a state for several hours more were it not for the forest sounds that gradually turned into voices.

In her dream, her long ears listened but could not identify the sounds. This was no memory of the past, but rather a simple dream conjured by the depths of her ancient mind. But when she attempted to drift even deeper into the dark bliss, once of the voices in particular became...more understandable. Deep. Very deep. It spoke words that were not her language, and she gradually understood it to be Low Common. It was familiar...so familiar. And when the screams came, Tirith was shocked to find that the voice didn't cease yelling off in the distance even when she woke up.

Sunlight filtered beneath the door, signaling that it was still daytime outside, and yet didn't feel too bad considering the rude awakening she'd just received. People of multiple races screamed for dear life outside her door, and weapons clanged along to the voices of...there was no mistaking it for what it was.

Grogginess clouded her mind in a way she hadn't been used to for millennia, and it took her five seconds - four and a half seconds too long - to remember that her gear had been properly stored in the unfinished armory at the camp. Whoever it was outside, they were obviusly hostile, and the unnatural heat and the crackling sound spoke of arson as well. It didn't even take someone as experienced as her to know that the moment she walked out that door, she'd need to walk out swinging.

Scanning the room, she found a spare mallet left by one of the outpost's laborers and wielded it, stretching the best she could as she wondered who would be next in line to try and end Tirith Nightshade. By the specific tones of the screams, she could tell that prisoners were being taken; the lack of screams from the opposing side informed her that she needn't rush, as there was likely little she could do at that point. Crouching on the bed and listening closely, she waited for heavy, plodding footsteps to pass by dragging a thrashing but gagged victim before she peeked outside. The bright light of the sun's rays coupled with the smoke and flames interfered with her ultravision, and Tirith immediately adjusted her quick strategizing when she realized the disadvantage she'd be at.

Creeping outside, she stuck to the shadows in a way she wasn't used to doing as a tank, searching for a spot among the individual stalls and temporary, prefabricated buildings as she attempted to survey the area. More shouting broke out in Low Common, and a blue mane the same color as her hair waved in the air as Tirith saw a female jungle troll pass in between the buildings across from her hiding spot. From what she understood from the campfire gossip at Nesingwary's outpost, these were a people who typically didn't send their womenfolk into wars for some illogical reason; the gender of the attacker she saw, coupled with the woman's camouflage war paint and lack of heavy armor, signified a scout rather than a berserker. Had this camp been found by chance, or was the attack premeditated?

Everything was happening so fast. Screams filled the air around her. Fires burned and collapsed the unfinished buildings. Gryphons screeched and Tirith even spied some armored troops making hasty aerial escapes overhead rather than defending the outpost. Her stomach turned; even despite her intense dislike of the faction, she wouldn't abandon innocent people being kidnapped by a rival-"

"Tirith..."

For the first time in a very long time, she tensed up and froze. It was the first time in her entire life she'd done so in a combat situation. But when she heard that familiar voice, she didn't feel exactly threatened...just angry and confused.

She turned around, finding a large male standing before her. The gleam of the heavy bronze armor he wore shone in her eyes, but she didn't need to focus her vision to know that it was Oacaxo's voice. She could sense a measure of confusion and anger radiating from him as well, though neither of them dropped into a battle stance. More screams rang out as they stared at each other.

"Tirith Nightshade...you live at Camp Freedom...not this place," he stuttered, almost in disbelief. "Why? Why you came here, Tirith? This place, not yours!"

Indignance mixed with the friendship she felt they'd started, confusing her mind in ways it wouldn't have before mortality, and before emotions returned to the older night elves. "Oacaxo...what are _you_ doing here? What is this? What's all of this?" She waved her hands around the smoke trailing into the sky, her anger and confusion increasing as more soldiers abandoned their posts and fled.

But her supposed friend only shook his head. "We not start this war; but it started. Long story." His hands lay aplomb at his sides, and despite the displeasure they both experienced at seeing each other there, she could tell that he wouldn't fight her. Thus when he tried to step toward her, she backed away rather than leaping forward to strike. "Tirith, you must go now. We are not alone; I not can help you."

"Make them stop, Oacaxo! This is wrong!" The screams decreased in number as more victims were killed and then morphed into pitiful wails as the survivors were taken prisoner. Orders were barked at them just on the other side of the building Tirith was leaning against, and the hopelessness of the situation dawned on her. "Tell your tribe to leave!"

Irritation morphed into sadness and back again on his conflicted face, and despite her anger, Tirith felt a bit of pity for the man despite not knowing exactly what was going through his head. "Long story. Very long. This," he said while pointing all around him, "not stop. Too late. I'm sorry." He moved toward her again, and this time she gripped the mallet even more tightly and didn't back up.

"How...Oacaxo, why..." Tirith faltered,minor finding the words to express what she was feeling.

What she heard and saw around her was so wrong. She'd watched him slaughter a whole group of tigers, and the small glimpses of the battle she spied in between buildings proved that his entire branch of the tribe fought like he did. At the top of the outpost's flagpole, Marge's human lapdog had been impaled as some sort of grim warning to whoever would approach later, punctuating how little could be done to save the other inhabitants at that point. She wanted to punch her friend, she wanted to ask him why this had to happen, ask him why he was sorry, to fight against the invaders, to simply abandon people she didn't know and whose faction she didn't feel a part of. So when Oacaxo raised his hand again, she stiffened again, unsure of how to react.

It wasn't until Tirith felt the mallet snatched from her hand and her entire body pulled to the ground by that arm that she realized Oacaxo was trying to tell the female Skulksplitter from earlier to back off.

"Argh!" Tirith growled furiously at both the attacker pinning her to the dirt and herself for having let her guard down once again.

By the standards of Kaldorei, Tirith was large; she was a tank, a huntress, taller than at least half the menfolk and chosen for her sturdiness. But she knew of the jungle trolls judging by Oacaxo, who was average for their people, and was even more angry but not surprised when she looked up to see the unstrained, effortless expression on the troll woman's face while pinning her to the ground. The feet of another female stopped above her head, and Tirith panicked. In her panic and anger and confusion, she couldn't quite make out what Oacaxo was yelling at the two women, but judging by the fact that they yelled back Tirith guessed that he was at least trying to argue her case, if not do something so useful as defending her from her attackers. Camouflage war paint colored various shades of green covered the women's figures, making it difficult to discern what the were doing due to the intense sunlight shining straight down. Hence the dark brown of the wooden leg sheared of all its bark stood out clearly, increasing Tirith's sense of panic beyond what her pride had allowed her to think possible of herself.

A few more Skullsplitter dragged prisoners by on the ground, shouting angrily at Oacaxo as he tried to stop the two females verbally. Since others were arguing their case for them, they ignored him entirely as they pinched Tirith's nose shut, causing her to instinctively close her mouth. Eventually she relented due to lack of oxygen, and soon found the wooden peg shoved carefully between her teeth, almost with a surgeon's precision.

"Hurrkk!" she choked as the wooden peg was shoved to a depth just above her uvula, stretching her jaw out and holding firmly against all her teeth.

In desperation, she clawed the thigh of the woman pinning her down using her long, sharp fingernails, but to no avail. Troll hide felt like an extra thick pencil eraser, and the moment the woman started to bleed, the dur started to heal itself naturally. Given no mental place to run, Tirith finally admitted to the fear welling up within her as she realized that she had no control over her head; the length of the peg allowed the second jungle troll to control Tirith's head and neck entirely, easily using the piece of wood like a lever to turn her head to the side. The last thing the night elf could remember was the sound of the Skullsplitter woman's open palm slapping hard against her temple and she was knocked out cold.


	18. July 12, year 24, A

_July 12, year 24_

Strange horns and flutes filled her ears shortly after her world had gone dark, bringing back memories of a musical style long since forgotten. During her people's servitude to the balance, they'd developed art forms more in touch with the natural environment. Instruments were finely crafted by hand from various sinews and yew wood the wisps would harvest for them naturally, blending in to the sounds of the forest around them. It was a world of difference from the infernal, almost arcane sounding instruments they'd enjoyed when living alongside the First Well of Eternity. All of them had reveled in it; Tirith was no exception. The sound almost seemed demonic into her now, reminding her of a time that rightfully passed into the tales woven in history books.

It was primitive. It was backward. But it was too, too familiar, from an earlier time in her development. And when coupled with the low chanting in a creole mixing Low Common and Zandali, she realized that she wasn't in Suramar anymore.

More cracklings fire filled her ears, but this time it was controlled, like a torch. Wailing filled her ears again, and recollection of the raid on the observation outpost flowed into her mind. Her core felt light and tingly and she realized that she was lying inside of a suspended cage, though in a rather comfortable position as if placed there gingerly. Her head was sore but not as much as she expected, and seeing how she was in captivity somewhere, she didn't rush to wake up while she waited for the dizziness and haze to leave her mind.

Eventually the few slivers of morning light drifting below the canopy were blotted out by passing clouds, allowing Tirith a better view of her surroundings. She sat up, leaning against the bars of the wooden cage to spy the thick, heavy stone walls etched with strange runes that bore a vague similarity to icons of an era long before even the War of the Ancients. The ground was grassy and unpaved, and there was no roof in the small, open air room in which her cage was suspended from the canopy. Torches and voodoo wards marked the passageways to other parts of the stone city of walls, and she couldn't see any doors leading out. Numerous other cages filled the area, all of them filled to the brim with wailing captives. Whether it was due to her size or to the kindness of one of her captors, Tirith had been granted a cage all to herself.

The others weren't so lucky. Other cages contained two or even three humans or dwarves, and one cage contained at least a dozen gnomes. Limbs were draped over bodies and heads hung out through the bars as people settled toward the bottom of the cages. More than a few of the people bore fresh bruises, unlike the older ones she could visibly identify as having been incurred during the raid on the outpost; likely from initially fighting each other for space, she surmised. Whatever had occurred before, however, had died down and aside from the sobs, most of them seemed to have accepted the lack of space they had to share. Everybody was cramped, frightened and miserable. A few meat hooks were also suspended from the canopy, holding onto jungle panthers - some of them still living - as if the carnivores were actually livestock animals. A brazier burned with incense, adding to the primitive and backward sense of the place.

Tirith's cage was just barely high enough for her to see over the edges of the stone walls. The very tops of wooden and straw huts poked up in the rainforest, some of them built onto the trunks of the thicker, more robust trees. Very little else was made of stone, from what she could see in her narrow field of vision between the to of the stone wall and the bottom of the canopy, save a foul looking ziggurat that brought brief memories of old lessons from her childhood. She'd been born right after the war between the Kaldorei and the Twin Empires, but she remembered these structures from drawings. The flag bearing a cracked skull informed her of where she was at the moment, in the modern era.

"Xlatl..." she murmured to herself quietly, finally pronouncing the town's name properly. Oacaxo had referred to it as a village, but an inordinate amount of huts were crowded around the ziggurat; the entire space occupied by the town was only slightly larger than Camp Freedom, but she ventured a guess that it held three times the population.

Her captivity provided her little opportunity to observe her surroundings. Although the light conditions were favorable, she could only see the very top of the structures of the town; most of the inhabitants must have been tending to their daily chores, as she saw few people other than young children and the elderly stirring in the upper tiers of the distinctive jungle troll huts. Braziers could be heard burning everywhere across the town; when combined to the noise of the inhabitants, the calls of tropical birds and monkeys and the cries of her fellow prisoners, it all created a din that disrupted the sensitive hearing of her long ears. Motion in a cage full of dwarves, however, caught her eye.

"Shh! Shut up! I ain't going te let this place be me grave!" hissed a badly injured old mortar teamster while trying to wedge an elbow out of the cage.

The structure swung slightly from the motion, and his two comrades - one of them being the young groupie - began to protest. "Wait, you'll draw attention to us!" a younger male hissed right back, fear apparent in the eyes of a member of a race who rarely experienced it.

"We're dead meat if we don't try anything - literally! At least we might have a chance!"

The older dwarf then produced a flare gun he had somehow smuggled past their captors. How he'd managed to do it was beyond the point; as Tirith curled into the corner of her cage and pretended to be unconscious, she could already predict the events that would unfold.

A loud bang rang out as the dwarf fired the flare gun, aiming perfectly to shoot the flare through the branches of the trees and high into the sky. The light was bright even during the day time, and the loud, sparkling shower it created overhead was sure to be heard and seen for miles. The dozen gnomes in a single cage began to panic, thrashing and fighting each other with weak, exhausted limbs as they appeared to have been pushed beyond the scope of logic. Deep, rumbling grunts sounded off from around the stone corner and even when suspended off the ground, Tirith could sense the heavy footsteps of the robust tribespeople stalking over to the open air room. The old dwarf fired off a second and third flare in different directions, creating an incredible amount of light and noise in the sky and finally tossing the gun across the outdoor room just before an angry looking female and male from the Skullsplitter tribe ambled over.

Neither of them looked familiar to Tirith, but she recognized them as being members of the correct tribe right away. Much more robust than the Darkspear jungle trolls of the Horde, both Skullsplitter bore massive bone structures yet still bore a feral agility she respected. The male wasn't as bulky as Oacaxo but possessed similar width and dimensions, and the female was slouched forward and built almost like an orc woman, though was much, much taller. Both of them wore war paint that was too colorful for scouts, and she surmised that they might be town guards of some sort.

The dwarves smartly quieted down and held still as the two pairs of deep set eyes inspected them, and even the humans calmed down as much as a short lived race could have been expected to do. The gnomes continued to squeal like trapped quilboar in their cage, causing the female to rattle and shake it in irritation.

"You be quiet!" she ordered them in relatively unaccented Low Common, possibly also being a native speaker of the language.

Her lists lay limp and she barely even shook the cage, but such was her strength that the gnomes flew all over the enclosure like pebbles in a jar, many of them screaming as they incurred fresh injuries from the impact. Upon realizing that her efforts were only causing them to grow any noiser, the female Skullsplitter left them alone and joined the male in inspecting the area. Swiveling her head, she noticed the flare gun and picked it up.

"Magic...dwarf magic," she rasped, opening up the barrel in a surprising display of technological knowledge for such a backward people and removing the last loaded flare. In a single motion, she crushed the iron gun in her three fingered hand before approaching the cage of dwarves with the flare in her free hand. "Gun makes fire; you want burn our town?" she asked the dwarves, as if a prisoner wouldn't try to fight back their captors.

"Let us go! Let us go! Please let us go!" the female dwarf babbled, only growing more hysterical when the female Skullsplitter pulled the cage even closer until their eyes met.

"Shut up, woman!" the older dwarf rasped at his younger compatriot.

The tribeswoman's long nose scrunched up as she sniffed the three dwarves, her vision honing in on the wounded older male. "You smell gun smell," she rasped at him. "You want shoot our town?"

"I've shot plenty o ye beasts in my time," the old dwarf spat defiantly.

Only a second later, and the male Skullsplitter had flipped open the cage, flung the injured dwarf to the ground and slammed the cage shut on the fingers of the female dwarf, thwarting her escape attempt and eliciting a piercing scream as she irrationally tugged at her caught hand and probably injured it even more. The younger male who was still in the cage clamped his hand over her mouth, muffling her screams as she continued to pull and tug.

By that time, however, the two guards had already lost interest. The male ambled over toward the fallen dwarf, unhinging a bone tomahawk from the drawstring holding up his rather skimpy loincloth. Despite the old dwarf's injuries, he struggled to his knees and managed one more defiant attempt to spit at his captors, though his throat was so parched that only a few drops of spittle emerged. For some reason, the male jungle troll appeared inordinately angry at the dwarf and all the captives in general, and when the dwarf unleashed a string of invective in his own language, the Skullsplitter smashed the wounded man over the top of his bald head with an empty palm strike similar to the method by which one of the females had knocked out Tirith. In spite of the large blue man's power, the dwarf's constitution somehow prevented him from falling completely unconscious, leaving him instead to groan in a half awake, half asleep state. When the Skullsplitter bent over to pick up the last remaining flare round, a darker part of Tirith - one that had experience with the handful of dark troll tribes hostile toward the night elves - caused her to instinctively close her eyes and pretend to sleep again. All she could do was tell herself that the dwarf freely admitted to having killed members of the Skullsplitter tribe in the past, that both sides were likely guilty, and that she ultimately didn't know who was at fault for whatever dude had been brewing between the tribe and the two major world factions.

Screams rang out and the semi conscious dwarf groaned again at the same time that the familiar sound of flesh being torn reached her ears. Rather than take any sort of pleasure in what was unfolding, the female Skullsplitter simply growled at the captives to shut them up, and even the grunt from the male signified that he didn't particularly enjoy the summary execution he was meting out. Cracking her eye open, Tirith was only able to catch a blurry glimpse of the thin but deep cut opened in the dwarf's abdomen before the guard shoved the flare round into it and tossed the dwarf onto the brazier. She closed her eye again just before she heard the loud pop of the flare exploding from the heat, followed by the sound of gore splashing against the stone walls. Such gruesome displays were not new to her after all the harpy and murloc nests she'd raided in her time, but knowing that she was powerless to fight back from that cage chilled even the ancient Kaldorei despite her stoicness.

"Anyone else want try shoot our town?" the female Skullsplitter addressed to the entire group of captives.

Only more wails and sobs met her voice in reply, save a scream from the female dwarf as the surviving male pulled her fingers out from between the cage bars. In all Tirith's years, she'd seen a lot of awful situations, but she'd never truly been at the mercy of an opponent since the War of the Ancients, and even then, she'd been a civilian during that time; to be helpless after the beginning of her martial life was entirely new for her. When the two guards shambled away from the cages far enough to shout something inaudible to unseen comrades around the corner, Tirith found herself pushed to a sense of despair beyond even the monotony she'd first felt at Camp Freedom.

She didn't have very long to wallow in her own shock and disbelief at the notion that, after having come so close to retirement and her return to Kalimdor, she'd possibly starve to death or be summarily executed as part of a conflict she wanted nothing to do with anyway. Before long, more heavy footsteps echoed in the ground, barely giving the captives long enough to finish crying in shock at the graphic end the old dwarf had met. Hushed conversation failed to reach around the corner audibly enough for Tirith to understand what was being said, but she could tell that the conversation was serious and direct. Trying to focus on the sounds in vain provided her a topic other than her own possible demise to think about, and she found herself doing her best to decipher the words. Mentions of a human and the 'correct one' we're all she could make out before two more guards entered flanking someone of obvious importance.

Another female, thinner and older than the first, moved silently around as she inspected the various cages. Her septum was pierced by what appeared to be the smaller tusk of another female of their kind, and her hair was adorned with bones, bundled twigs and other fetishes that clinked when she walked. Her war paint was much more extensive but also colorful, clashing with the tropical bird plumes she wore. Most striking, however, was the fact that her eyes glowed; Tirith could practically feel the voodoo radiating from the woman and assumed her to be some sort of medium. The four other jungle trolls fell silent in her presence, waiting for a command.

"No...not these," the woman who appeared to be some sort of witch doctor growled in a low voice while poking the cage full of gnomes.

Not needing any further instruction, two of the guards unlocked the cage full of gnomes; unlike the dwarven guild groupie, they cowered at the opposite side of the tall, narrow cage rather than dare an escape attempt. The witch doctor growled again, this time in obvious disapproval, prompting the male who had butchered the dwarven mortar man to shake the opened cage.

"Five minutes, what have you. Run. That is all you get." For a split second the gnomes only stared in disbelief at the jungle troll's broken but unaccented Low Common before bolting like a stampede of lemmings.

Under and in between the long legs of the tribespeople, the gnomes scattered, disappearing around the corner of the stone room and shrieking in response to the laughter of unseen locals. There were no sounds of further violence, and as the shrieks of the gnomes died off in the distance, Tirith gained a sliver of hope that she might be spared, too. The witch doctor walked over to the cage containing the two surviving dwarves next, snarling when the female wouldn't stop crying.

"Definitely not...get them out!"

The male performed the same action he had for the gnomes, opening the cage of the two dwarves and shaking it roughly. Unlike the gnomes, however, the dwarves didn't hesitate and very soon had disappeared, garnering more laughter as they bolted to their second chances on life. No explanations were given as to why, and frankly, Tirith didn't care. All she could focus on was looking as non threatening as possible and ignoring the scenes from her long life that were flashing before her eyes.

Several cages of humans remained, and the witch doctor's eyes narrowed. "It was man who did it...we not need women. Get them out."

Confused, the humans became absolutely still as their cages were opened, all of them cowering away at first. Soon enough, though, the females were shrieking as they were torn out of their cages, and the once stalwart males could do nothing but reach out to them, far too intimidated to actually attempt any sort of defense. Half a dozen female humans were shoved toward the exit, most of the, being knocked down in the process. The female guard growled in a louder voice than the witch doctor, stomping her foot on the ground until the female humans ran, shrieking like the gnomes as they beat a similarly hasty retreat from Xlatl and not even looking back at their menfolk. For their part, the male humans appeared quickly beaten, most of them stepping out of their cages without even being asked and looking down to as not to stand out from the others.

The witch doctor regarded them all with contempt. "Take them to the show," she ordered the guards, and the two male guards that had arrived alongside her began prodding the male humans with blunt sticks like cattle until they disappeared. Only this time, no laughter rang out nor did any screams, and Tirith just barely noticed movement at the ziggurat from her vantage point, though she couldn't quite tell what was going on.

Desperation and nervousness filled her once more as she realized that she was the only captive left in her cage, and was obviously different from the others. As a proud, independent warrior, she _hated_ feeling controlled and helpless - she hated it with every ounce of her being. She was completely out of her element, and unsure of what to do or how to react to whatever the witch doctor would say to her.

Before that happened, the female guard walked over to her cage and peered inside. Though the tall woman was obviously in a foul mood, much of her negativity drained away and despite the fact that they'd never seen each other before, there was a sense of definite recognition on the woman's face. Hope welled up inside of Tirith's chest and she prayed to the goddess that Oacaxo, perhaps feeling guilty for having stood idly and done absolutely nothing to prevent her capture, had tried to intercede on her behalf.

The latch clicked as the female guard opened the door of the cage using a gentle motion. "This one not involved, Ixchel," the guard said to the witch doctor.

Ixchel...another name she couldn't pronounce. Tirith could only hope that the woman was as unbigoted toward night elves as Oacaxo. Keeping her eyes downcast, Tirith attempted to humble herself in a way that wounded the pride in her warrior's heart, knowing that the humility in the face of thoroughly detestable people could save her. There was a long, drawn out silence during which she felt her pulse race.

Softer footsteps patted on the grass as the witch doctor named Ixchel approached, looking Tirith over inside the cage. Even for the females of their kind, there was a rumble in their lungs as they breathed, projecting an air of brutishness whether the individual was behaving aggressively or not. In the case of Ixchel, it wasn't entirely clear what her attitude was; the two guards remained silent as the witch doctor looked the night elf over.

From a far away place, Tirith began to feel a creeping sensation. Not like the fel magic of demons or the unholy magic of the undead; nor was it arcane, nor the Light wielded by the humans. What Tirith felt surrounding her, cornering her, smothering her was something more basic, less complex but less resistable as well; something primeval, from an even earlier era than herself. From the top of her lowered vision she could see the glow of Ixchel's eyes increasing, pinning Tirith to the bottom of the cage. The witch doctor probed her mind, intruding mentally in a way that left her feeling violated physically. Before she even had the chance to cringe, the sensation disappeared altogether, relieving the night elf's ears of a white noise she hadn't even noticed when it first snuck up on her. The environment returned to normal, save for the return of Ixchel's ire - all of it directed onto Tirith in a very personal, intimate way.

"This one comes, too," Ixchel ordered the two guards, much to their obvious chagrin in a way that left Tirith even more confused yet also desperate and hopeful that, just maybe, the guards really had been informed that she was a non threat.

The female guard grabbed Tirith by the arm in a much gentler manner than the night elf thought possible of such a bestial looking three fingered hand, pulling her out reluctantly. "This one not fight the scouts, Ixchel," the female guard protested weakly. "This one never fight Skullsplitter."

The witch doctor was not impressed, and grunted in a way that caused both guards to stiffen. "This one comes, too," she repeated, not budging an inch.

The male guard took Tirith's other arm and led her behind the witch doctor as they are exited through the stone walls, granting her the first glimpse of an actual jungle troll village.

Much as she had expected, there were no other stone structures - even the big communal longhouse appeared to be constructed of wood and leather. The only exception was the rather small ziggurat at the center of the town, which was also the only nearby area with a clearing granting a clear view of the sky above. The rest of the settlement was entirely beneath the canopy; like the dwellings of her own people, many of the huts were wrapped around the trees, though they were built on crudely rather than grown naturally. The place was crowded and busy, especially with children - the population bulge in such a small place was obviously due to a high rate of reproduction. Fortunately, Tirith was largely ignored by the locals and was spared the boos and jeers hurled at the male humans, who had already been dragged halfway up the ziggurat ahead of them.

To Tirith's horror, she realized that she was being dragged in that same direction through the crowded town of huts beneath the trees. A number of mature locals had gathered around the base of the ziggurat, while more than a few parents and grandparents ushered the children away, disappearing among the densely packed undergrowth mixed in with the huts. She could already tell that she was headed for one of the biggest challenges she'd faced in many thousands of years.

"Huamac, you come," Ixchel ordered the male guard as she hurried forward to meet another elder jungle troll wearing the plumes of birds of paradise. The two began to discuss what appeared to be a strange bronze bowl carried by two laborers, and very soon the male guard had joined them.

The female guard stopped in the middle of the crowded dirt road leading toward the ziggurat, retaining a grip on Tirith's arm that was firm but not painful. The two were entirely ignored by those passing by, despite the generally accepted fact that jungle and forest trolls greatly detested elves of all kinds. Perhaps it was the large amount of scorn being heaped upon the eight or nine humans lined up on the bottom steps of the ziggurat, or perhaps they truly didn't care about her. Both notions weren't so bad, though the second was preferable.

Grasping for any sort of foothold, Tirith trained her vision on the witch doctor while speaking to the female guard through the side of her mouth. "I don't want to fight Xlatl," she whispered, making sure to use the town's name and shocking even herself when she pronounced it correctly.

The guard's eyes widened only for a second before normalizing again, and the savage, painted woman stared in the same direction. A deep him resonated in her throat, and when she spoke, her tone almost sounded apologetic despite the horrifying display the woman had taken part in when the old dwarf had been killed. "Oacaxo is sorry...very sorry," the woman whispered back. "He not know you go to place for the bad men."

Though Tirith didn't know who the supposed bad men were, she understood the message - and that her presumptions about Oacaxo speaking up in her defense were correct, and that it was the cause of the guard's relative softness toward her. "Can you help me survive this?" she asked the jungle troll.

A long, ominous sigh escaped through the woman's long, pointy nose. "Will try. Not promise," the guard replied casually and without any sense of urgency. It was as if the situation was merely a case of granting a light favor, rather than a matter of life or death. "Tlazotzin not want fight you," the woman added at the end.

Her heart rate accelerating out of control, Tirith battled away thoughts and memories of the Ashenvale purplewoods and her old patrols and forced herself to keep up hope that she'd still be breathing by the day's end. "Thank you," she managed to choke out quietly, feeling a dizziness that she hated to admit when Ixchel turned around to regard the two of them.

"To the side," the witch doctor ordered the guard supposedly called Tlazotzin while pointing to the same step the humans were lined up on, but off to the side.

Huamac assisted the laborers in setting down a wide bronze bowl before the nervous, shaking humans before joining the other guards just behind the captives. Fortunately, Tlazotzin pulled Tirith away from the jeering crowd and up the other side of the ziggurat, an empty side, and kept her away from the view of the crowd. Ixchel took a position in front of the humans, facing all the people; it was only then that Tirith recognized the tattered red and yellow tabard on one of them.

Raising both arms, Ixchel quieted the medium sized crowd gathered for the 'show.' Sounds of various laborers and craftspeople working rang out from the other end of the town, behind all the underbrush and thick trees, and it became apparent that not all would attend the gathering. When she seemed satisfied that she had everyone's attention, the witch doctor spoke in a relatively low but sonorous voice that carried across the crowd.

"Weeks finish; our people search. Mothers weep. Criminals go free." A handful of locals hissed at the humans, and Tirith could distinctly see two women dressed in scant panther furs pushing their way to the front of the crowd. "Two treasures lie embalmed, must wait for revenge; today, not wait again." Pointing to another witch doctor, this one male and noticeably younger than her, Ixchel silenced any murmured that had erupted from the crowd. "Let criminals see victims," she ordered, to a surprisingly muted response from the crowd compared to what Tirith had observed from massed groups of orcs, ogres or even dwarves.

In each arm, the younger witch doctor carried bundles of cloth, and everyone gathered around gave him wide berth. The two women who had been pushing their way to the front of the crowd began to weep softly, showing a fragility that Tirith didn't think possible for their people. Those around them held them up straight as if they required support, and anger swept across the front row of the crowd as the younger witch doctor unfurled to mummified bodies small enough to fit in his arms.

Ixchel's eyes glowed again, and the humans all cowered away from her even more. They were entirely unbound, but none of them dared to run away as the witch doctor pierced each one of them with her hypnotics the way she'd done to Tirith earlier. All of them cringed, much to the amusement of the crowd, until she released them from her dark grip.

Slowly, her finger came to rest on the man to the left of Derrick, who looked positively terrified as he stood in his brightly colored guild tabard. "You..." Ixchel hissed at one of the cooks from the now destroyed Alliance observation post. "Tell me, who here brag for kill Skullsplitter before weeks?" she asked in her almost unaccented yet grammatically incorrect Low Common.

At first the chef hesitated, wiping nonexistent stains off of his apron. Eventually the growls from the crowd spurred him to sell out his friend, bringing back memories of Derrick's claims of having shot two members of the tribe in the head near a riverbank. "It was him," the cook stuttered while pointing to the man in the red and yellow tabard.

Hisses leapt forth from the subdued crowd, who seemed more intent on burning into the humans with their gazes rather than their voices. Ixchel sneered contemptuously at the cook but beckoned him forward with a finger all the same. The man gulped visibly and took half a step forward, pursing his lips tightly as if he'd ball like a baby right there. "You can go," Ixchel proclaimed, pointing toward the far end of the town where the gnomes, dwarves and female humans had run off to.

At first, the cook seemed like he might pass out, but after wavering for a moment he stumbled and fell off the ziggurat. In the presence of the tiny mummies, there were no laughs from the crowd anymore, and instead the cook was, surprisingly, ignored as he beat a hasty retreat from the gathering. Feeling absolutely no sympathy for Derrick whatsoever, Tirith felt her hope increase tenfold as she put together the pieces of the puzzle: somehow, the Skullsplitter knew that Derrick had murdered two of their own, that he was bragging about it, and that he would be at the observation post that day. How unfortunate it was, then, that Tirith happened to be there as well, but at least it seemed as if she simply wasn't the one they were interested in.

Ixchel's finger came to rest on the human to the other side of Derrick, this one the size of a soldier but wearing his pajamas. He'd likely been caught unaware and spared if he hadn't fought back against the assault. Motionless like a statue, the soldier didn't lift his eyes from his own feet.

"You...tell me, you. What this man says about killing Skullsplitter? At the river?"

Displaying as little concern for Derrick as Tirith felt, the soldier immediately fessed up. "He claims he fought two of your people valiantly, and slayed them by a river," the man replied, to angry jeers and hisses from the crowd.

Just then, Ixchel pointed to the second witch doctor, who stood by her side and held up the tiny mummies for all to see. "Valor...person needs valor for kill _Skullsplitter childs_?!" Ixchel asked, a fire in her voice that wasn't loud but still filled the entire area from the forcefulness with which she spoke. Raucous disapproval reverberated from the crowd, and even Tirith felt the pang of disgust hit her when she realized that - if the witch doctor's voodoo was accurate - Derrick had murdered two children and had been bragging about it for weeks. No wonder the guard named Huamac had seemed so angry when the old dwarf claimed to have killed members of their tribe.

Whether from calculating self preservation or a legitimate sense of rage, the human soldier appeared swept up by the crowd's fervor. "No, this man is not valiant," the soldier answered to the approval of the crowd. "And he does not represent me!" In a scene that she was sure wouldn't be believed by anyone, anywhere, any time, a crowd of vicious jungle trolls cheered for a human soldier of the Alliance, earning a betrayed, angry glare from Derrick.

At promoting from Ixchel, Huamac grabbed the soldier by the arm and dragged him off of the ziggurat, pushing him into the crowd of Skullsplitter that actually parted ways for him to leave. Looking back sympathetically at both Tirith and the humans other than Derrick, the man turned and walked away in complete safety despite all logic dictating that a human soldier shouldn't be able to leave such a place with his skull intact. It was an absolute spectacle, and would almost have been entertaining had it not involved a brutally murdered dwarf and the bodies of two murdered children.

A few more anxious humans remained on the bottom steps of the ziggurat, all of them bunching up together and distancing themselves from Derrick. Stepping up right next to him, Ixchel stretched to her full height, towering over him and earning more silence from the crowd. Frozen in place, Derrick held absolutely still, looking like he wished he could disappear. In a further lapse in reason that Tirith was consciously aware of, she felt herself identifying with the tribe that had kidnapped her; she almost found herself hissing at the man in the blazing tabard as well.

Glowering down at the human, Ixchel dragged out the painful display as long as she could. "What say you, shooter man?" she asked in an antagonistic, passive aggressive manner. "Tell the people, what you make at the river before some weeks?"

Trembling to the point of a seizure, Derrick absolutely humiliated. Ixchel punched him hard on one of his love handles, prompting him to speak. "It was an accident," he mumbled, immediately being hit in the face with a rotten citrus fruit that stung his eyes. The crowd didn't laugh, however; the rest of the town continued to bustle out of view of the ziggurat, but the crowd didn't make a sound.

Eyes glowing slightly once more, Ixchel smiled in the way that someone did when they were actually angry. Derrick cringed once more, and Tirith could tell that his mind was being probed again. "You lie," she hissed, baring her tusks at him. "Loa say you joke for kill our childs." He shook his head no, but even the other humans on the ziggurat looked upon him in disgust, all of them seeming to forget that they were also still held captive by the tribe.

Once again at the witch doctor's promoting, the crowd parted and the two women who had been weeping moved forward, reaching out for the tiny mummies before glaring at Derrick. Their entire visages flipped one hundred and eighty degrees, and they looked positively feral as the had to be held back from leaping up on the ziggurat. Ixchel put her arm around Derrick's shoulder as if she were trying to share a joke with him, continuing to smile angrily. Huamac actually had to step forward and have a word with the two women before they calmed down, and the crowd backed up slightly and created some space around the two women, Huamac and the heavy bronze bowl.

"Only victim family can intercede for criminal," Ixchel announced to the crowd, hugging Derrick closer to her as if they were good buddies. "What say you?" she addressed to the two bereaved mothers.

Both of them seethed before the one on the left gashed her teeth. "No intercession!" she bellowed, displaying a decent vocabulary and diction despite the berserker rage glowing in her eyes.

What happened next was unlike anything Tirith had even seen among the dark trolls of Kalimdor. With a single shove, Ixchel sent Derrick flying into the dirt, yet the crowd still held their tongues and created little noise as the two bereaved mothers set upon the human. Curling into a fetal position, Derrick looked up in confusion when the two women didn't hit him or even shout at him. Thus, he was caught totally unaware when the two women grabbed him by the pants and tore the leather fabric right off of him as if it were silk, causing him to flip up in the air and hit the dirt again. Only a few curses were heard as the two women stripped him entirely, leaving him naked in the dirt as Huamac unsheathed his primeval blade once more. Too terrified to even try to run away, Derrick tried to curl into the fetal position, babbling gibberish as he begged for his life.

Grabbing an ankle each, the two women lifted up by the feet, dangling up upside down and high above the ground due to the height disparity. Tirith almost gagged at the sight of the human's bare backside, thankful that she at least didn't have to see his private parts. She thought of closing her eyes, but thought against it lest she draw any attention to herself, and remained even stiller than a statue. Using his tomahawk, Huamac measured a straight line down Derrick's middle from his bottom to his head, ignoring the human's pathetic cries as he tried to claim he thought his two victims were actually adults. His words were replaced by blood curdling screams as Huamac brought the blade down, chopping a line from Derrick's groin down into his midsection in the most graphic, brutal way possible, leaving the human alive for as long as possible.

The two women pulled, ripping his body in half and creating a loud pop of pressured air escaping as Derrick's insides spilled into the bronze bowl. Applause rang out as Ixchel lit the contents of the bowl on fire, and the two mothers of the murdered children held the tiny mummified bodies one last time before being led away by the younger of the two witch doctors, ostensibly toward some sort of tomb. Raptors were led to drag away what was left of Derrick, and another local sprinkled incense and spices on the burning contents of the bowl to sweeten the nauseating stench.

Once the two mothers had been escorted away, Ixchel turned to the remaining humans. From the very beginning she'd known what Derrick had done; her twisted voodoo magic had told her, and the mock interrogation was only for show. Having no more use for the increasingly apprehensive captives, she stepped back to the bottom step of the ziggurat once more.

"You; all of you, go go," she told the relieved humans. "Tell your people: this is what Skullsplitter make for criminals." Just then, the sound of more flares sounded off in the distance, though they were very, very far away at that point. Tirith felt uneasy, but knew the escapees had probably smuggled more than one flare gun in and were trying to signal potential rescuers. Still not understanding the technology, Huamac growled, prompting Ixchel to give the surviving humans a warning. "And tell your people not shoot our town!"

Needing no more encouragement than that, the exhausted, terrified, beaten humans scrambled all over each other to escape, finally earning some more laughs from the crowd once the mummified children were out of view.

Tirith felt the anxiety she'd previously seen in the humans wash over her as she wondered what would become of her. A handful of the locals glanced at her, but surprisingly a number of them began to chat and amble away as if the bloody display had reached its end, paying her no mind. Just barely from the corner of her eye, she looked over toward Tlazotzin. "Can I go as well, since revenge has been taken?" she whispered.

Holding still for a moment, Tlazotzin seemed conflicted until Ixchel turned her back, at which point the female guard stealthily slipped down from the first step of the ziggurat to the ground below. Her movements were cautious, almost like a creeping spider, as she pulled Tirith along behind her, attempting to slip onto a side road leading between some dense underbrush created by rather sizeable elephant ear plants. A few other locals appeared to notice, gazing at the night elf in a mixture of curiosity, mockery and indifference. Tirith couldn't have imagined a more positive reaction, taking her situation into account.

When Ixchel swung around as if sensing the stealthy escape, Tirith's heart sank.

"Tlazotzin." Ixchel's tone of voice left no room for argument, and the female guard froze, causing Tirith to stiffen up so much that she almost pulled a muscle in her back. While a few of the locals returned from their disorganized departure, none of them bore the acrimonious glare that the witch doctor did. "Bring starchild here," Ixchel ordered, obviously referring to Tirith by the literal translation of the word 'Kaldorei.'

Confusion afflicted not only Tirith, but also the crowd in a way that caused her hoes to smash up against her fears. None of the traditional racism toward her people seemed to exist among this specific troll tribe; she would have expected them to heap even more scorn upon her than then humans, and yet a number of them appeared bored as they ambled back over toward the ziggurat.

Reluctantly, Tlazotzin gave Tirith's arm a small tug, though it still bore enough force to prevent any sort of resistance. The two of them stopped a good distance away from the witch doctor, and Tlazotzin began to look a bit meek. "Ixchel...this one not make crime," the female guard protested once again. "Not make any wrong."

Unmoved, the witch doctor glared at Tirith in a way that caused the locals around her to stare at Tlazotzin as if the woman was dancing with danger. "Here," Ixchel ordered, pointing to the dirt patch forming the viewing area in front of the ziggurat.

Flipping through thousands and thousands of years of memories, Tirith tried desperately to remember a situation in which she'd been in this much danger. If only she could remember a similar time, she could draw an analogy and think of a plan to escape her current predicament. But try as she might, she honestly couldn't think of a single instance throughout all her millennia of martial service against demons, harpies and centaurs when she'd been this close to...death. The word echoed in her mind. After immortality, she had to accept rather quickly the idea of natural death from old age. She expected that an end from natural causes was coming; she didn't think anything would be able to actually kill her after so many villains and monsters had failed. Bile threatened to bubble up from her stomach as disbelief and despair fought a small war inside of her.

Precious little time was granted to her in order to accept her reality. Soon enough, Tlazotzin had placed Tirith in between the crowd and the witch doctor. In a last ditch effort, the female guard began to look at Huamac, her male counterpart, for some sort of solution. Oacaxo must have shared his secret friendship with Tirith with most of the guards and other warriors, as even Huamac - who had just butchered two members of the Alliance in the most disgusting ways possible - looked at the night elf through empathic eyes.

"Ixchel...starchild not criminal," the male guard whispered to the witch doctor. "Maybe I just beat her, send message back to her people. Not want kill."

Sensing defiance from her two guards, Ixchel stared daggers at Huamac. Her gaze wasn't imbued with voodoo power; it was simply a sharp, furious glare that scared the brutal male into submission as his body language folded inward and became visibly nervous. "Not want kill starchild?" Ixchel practically dared him to confirm. Probably breaking a number of rules on Tirith's behalf despite not knowing her, Huamac just shook his head slowly, too afraid to look Ixchel in the eye. Unimpressed by his refusal, the witch doctor suddenly took on a magnanimous demeanor. "No need kill starchild, you," she told him ominously.

Chills went up Tirith's spine at the tone of the witch doctor's face, but she remained silent, ignoring the pressing urge to speak up for herself. Such a low level of social development generally signified obstinate, unchanging cultures; the sound of her own voice added to the dispute would only further solidify any ill intentions Ixchel bore. And despite her words, Tirith had no doubt that the woman's intentions were ill.

For a moment, Huamac almost looked hopeful, having taken Tirith's salvation as some sort of personal cause. "No kill? he asked in legitimate shock.

Grinning evilly, Ixchel almost seemed to enjoy tormenting her subordinates as much as she despised Tirith. Painted lips curled around carved tusks as the sorceress held the attention of every living thing in the area, seemingly even the cicadas that fell silent, dragging out Tirith's smothering sense of panic as every inch of her being urged her to cry out for answers as to what was happening. Instead of dread, fear or relief, Ixchel's next words simply perplexed the night elf even more.

"Get Oacaxo."

Everyone froze. The crowd, because of the smug, spiteful demeanor of their witch doctor; Huamac and Tlazotzin, seemingly because the matter was being taken out of their hands; and Tirith because she finally realized that if Ixchel read the minds of Derrick and the other humans despite toying with them, then it meant that Ixchel had read her mind too.

Which meant that...she saw...

A daze struck Tirith and Tlazotzin hissed, forcing the elf to stand up straight lest she draw any more attention to herself. Emotionally, Tirith had already awoken immediately after Nordrassil had been sacrificed along with her people's immortality, like most of the older generations of night elves. Intense feelings were no longer so alien to her anymore since she felt them all the time, like a hormonal adolescent, and had long since forgotten how to properly deal with the negative ones. But the sense of guilt that struck her at that moment, despite the actions in motion being entirely out of her hands, was almost painful.

As angry as Tirith was at Oacaxo for his refusal to prevent her abduction, she also understood that he was bound by a culture even older than hers - perhaps the only surviving world culture older than hers - and was incapable of rebellion against the mores pressed upon him by his caste. Had he been able to help her, she was sure he would have chosen to do so; and according to both his reaction and Tlazotzin's claim, he hadn't expected her to be there at that camp. Her heart still hurt when she remembered him standing there, arguing on her behalf but essentially allowing two Skullsplitter scouts to beat her unconscious without lifting a hand in her defense. If she survived this, the new, emotional side of her even hoped she'd have the opportunity to shame him afterwards. The old, rational side of her, however, told her than not only had he tried his best to avoid attacking a settlement she lived in, but also that her friendliness toward him had been detected by one of the cruel leaders of his town. And as irrational as it was, she couldn't prevent her emotional side from blaming herself for it, even as she balanced that with her terror at her possible impending doom. By the time Huamac had returned, Tirith almost felt ready to pass out from the fluctuations within her soul.

Huamac plodded over first, his expression unreadable as he stood before the passageway of underbrush he'd exited and reentered through. Tlazotzin squeezed Tirith's arm as if to comfort her, though the troll woman didn't appear very reassured herself. In a way, Tirith almost found herself gravitating toward the warmth she felt from the Skullspliter guards - sentries of an illiterate tribe of cannibals in the jungle who were mortal enemies of all other mortals. By all counts, none of them should have taken whatever intercession Oacaxo had performed on her behalf so seriously. Then again, a night elf wasn't supposed to be a friend to any of the diverse races of trolls.

Huamac stopped walking, but heavy footsteps continued to vibrate through the ground, and Tirith could already sense the figurr shambling up behind the guard. Same height, same width, but slightly bigger in the muscular frame, the wide gait she recognized as Oacaxo's approached. A bowed mohawk the same color as her own hair crowned his downcast head as he slunk out from behind his fellow guard. Out of the heavy bronze armor she'd seen him wearing the previous day, he looked like the kindred spirit she'd crossed paths with in the woods again. The weapon in his hand, though - a bone executioner's sword similar to the tomahawk that Huamac carried - paralyzed Tirith's throat and proved even more effective in suppressing her urge to yell in her own defense than her sense of reason did.

"Come, come," Ixchel urged him in a volume barely above a whisper, directing him to stand to her left. When she then turned toward Tirith, the night elf's fists clenched in a futile reaction against a threat. "You...starchild...come here."

Dryness pricked at Tirith's throat as she tried and failed to think of a solution, a course of action, anything at all to break herself out of her miserable stupor. Tlazotzin released her arm, leaving her feeling cold and alone as she finally lifted her head and tried desperately to make eye contact with Oacaxo. Murmurs wafted through the onlooking locals when the night elf merely stood there dumbfounded, and the transition on Ixchel's lips from evil grin to impatient grin partially brought Tirith into a better frame of mind. She shuffled forward slowly as if her shoes were filled with lead, giving up on thinking of a solution or escape plan and simply trying to keep one foot in front of the other and scolding herself for allowing ten millennia of experience to evade her and leave her like some lost civilian.

She stopped right in front of Ixchel, who continued to regard her with contempt but also a great deal of interest. No voodoo could be felt, and once again the witch doctor seemed intent on examining her the old fashioned way. Evil mixed with contained excitement on the woman's grin, and Tirith realized that she'd been exposed back at the open air prison.

"You think you friend Oacaxo?" Ixchel asked sarcastically, the look on her face extremely hostile and hateful in a personal manner.

Tirith's eyes darted to the man in question before darting back to the person addressing her. Looking away could get one or both of them in trouble, and she found herself robbed of support in spite of her previous hopes. Choosing her words as carefully as possible, she tried to change the subject.

"I don't want to fight your town," she answered as politely as possible.

"You think you friend Oacaxo?" Ixchel repeated, becoming more amused by the minute.

Pursing her lips and repressing the urge to make a grab for the dagger hanging from the drawstring of Ixchel's ogreskin skirt, Tirith refused to take the bait. "I don't want any problems; I just want to leave and never come to your land again," she pleaded, biting back nausea as she lowered herself to almost begging for the first time in her life.

A familiar darkness returned to Ixchel's grin before it turned to a sneer. She leaned precariously close to Tirith's ear, and the night elf prayed that she wouldn't snap or bite. "You think you when come in...say Oacaxo foreigner thinking," Ixchel hissed in a voice just loud enough only for the two of them to hear. "Say him friends...say him, some foreigners not want to fight...poison him." The last part was hissed in a particularly incensed manner, as if outside ideas were dangerous.

Suddenly, the highly personal nature of Ixchel's anger seemed to make more sense. The woman was much older than Oacaxo, and Tirith had always assumed him to be single based on his claim of having no friends...a mate would be considered a friend...so Ixchel didn't seem like his mate. Then again, their tribe was rather strange; Tirith had no way of knowing for sure and thought it unwise to ask, seeking to simply defend herself.

"I didn't want to poison anybody...I didn't intend to create any problems-"

"Lies!" Ixchel hissed loud enough for the others to hear her, and both Huamac and Tlazotzin backed away from the witch doctor and the sentinel, leaving only Oacaxo to sheepishly stand at the base of the ziggurat. "Foreigners only say lies! You find Oacaxo once; then you go to see him twice. I see all things; he not even need to say me. _You_ make him think he not want to fight. _You_ make him think warrior can make friends. _You_ want take him away from me," Ixchel snarled in such a furious tone that Tirith was sure she had no hope of escape lest someone else intervene. There was no way she could run when surrounded in the middle of their town, and there was no way for the witch doctor to be subdued without the consent of the locals. "And I not let you make me victim," the witch doctor added under her breath.

At the end of her proverbial rope, Tirith tried looking toward the locals who were still observing the show. Most of them seemed mildly interested though neither supportive or antagonistic toward her, though a few knitted brows were clearly sympathetic while one woman toward the back appeared hostile. Falling into her old habit of selective mutism when unsure of what to do, Tirith tried to turn her head toward Oacaxo, peering at him out of the corner of her eye in a last ditch effort.

Without even lifting his gaze from the ground, he spoke. "Not hurt starchild, Ixchel," he mumbled. " _Please_."

Incensed, Ixchel sneered at her subordinate. "Please? _Please_?" She quickly looked at Tirith again, and the night elf suddenly realized that what demons and tigers and furbolgs had failed to do, an illiterate witch doctor in the woods had come the closest to achieving. Ixchel bore into Tirith's glowing eyes with her own, sapping the night elf's willpower with her voodoo. "I end you today," Ixchel snarled, literally reading Tirith's mind for the one thing she had never expected any adversary to do.

A strong hand gripped Tirith's shoulder and pushed her to the ground, muscling into it and robbing her of any opportunity to resist. Her mental faculties of choice drained by the voodoo, she found herself fully aware of her surroundings and mostly aware of the fact that her long life was about to end, but powerless to fight back on any front. Her knees touched the soil as she found herself forced into a kneeling position, the gathered crowd and Ixchel to her right and Oacaxo and the ziggurat to the left. Time slowed down as she acquiesced, and she finally admitted to herself - with much more ease than she had ever expected - that she was going to die.

Thirteen thousand years. For thirteen thousand years that planet had been hers. Continents had shifted and drifted, the world had been rent asunder and unholy aliens had invaded multiple times. Civilizations rose and fell and entire countries dominated the world only to fall out of existence and all throughout these events, Tirith had been there - watching, waiting, expecting to wake up every single day for eternity with no concept of time or urgency, her sentience almost numbed by the ennui. Humans and dwarves with lifespans a fraction of hers were hailed as ancient and were celebrated, consulted and interviewed to fill history books and volumes of anecdotes based on their scant experience. And after a lifetime that bore exponentially more wisdom than any such people, Tirith was going to die alone, unknown and unmourned, in the middle of a collection of straw huts in the jungle.

A breeze somehow made its way below the canopy and ruffled her hair. Oh, how foolish she had been to have ignored the beauty of the wind in her hair for so long. It felt beautiful...so beautiful. She tried her best to focus on it, even as Ixchel pronounced a laundry list of supposed crimes to the surprisingly skeptical crowd.

From her kneeling position, Tirith could see how fast Oacaxo was breathing, almost to the point of hyperventilation. Trolls were not as emotional as orcs and humans, especially a tribe as instinctive as his, and yet he appeared overcome as the executioner's sword shook in his hands. And it was that apprehension within him that gave Tirith the closest feeling to peace that she could have felt at such a time.

She had given him a friend. He would be sad after she was gone judging by his current demeanor, but at least he'd known what it was like to have one for a short time. And he would be fine without her eventually, as would Khadijah, William, Soraya, Pontus and all the other friends she'd met in the Eastern Kingdoms. Silviel, Caledith, Priestess Lamynia and all the other women of Serenity had already moved on from the shared life that had been shattered. The entire Nightshade clan, all of her branch of the family, had been lost for thousands of years. There were still people living who would miss her, but not dearly; nobody would be heart broken. And that, more than anything, brought her a sense of calmness that she hadn't known for a very long time.

She opened her eyes; Ixchel had finished her rant. The locals watching silently had faded into the background, becoming irrelevant as even the witch doctor faded into the background. " **You** ," Ixchel growled at Oacaxo, her anger unleashed. "Show the people that your mind not been lost and corrupted for all. Show the people that you still worth to be alive; to be Skulksplitter. End this foreigner." The sound of finality in Ixchel's words caused even the witch doctor to disappear in Tirith's mind, leaving only her and the friend that she sincerely hoped would be able to just end her and move on with his life. There was no more time for games; the depression that had affected Tirith since long before the War of the Ancients stood bare in her mind, finally tolerated if it would make acceptance of her fate easier. A part of her was no longer bothered by this.

Footsteps that felt like they spanned hours carried the Skullsplitter warrior two paces toward Tirith, bringing him to a halt right next to her. She clasped her hands behind her back, bowing her head forward to even give him a better shot at her neck. If that was the time and place where she would bow out of life, at least let it be in a dignified manner, she rationalized.

Ixchel shouted something at him when he hesitated, though Tirith was no longer paying attention to what it was. A strange hum in her ears, somewhere in between a choir singing far off in the distance in a slow chant and a flute reverberating in a weak echo chamber, held her attention in the background. This was it; time to die.

The sound of a choked breath just barely reached her, and she looked up to see that brutish yet intelligent looking face still downcast. A sharp, angular nose curved down and two primal tusks curled upward, creating an intimidating visage made all the more confusing by the tears she could see rolling down his cheeks. Two big, meaty, powerful hands raised the carved bone above his head, his sense of loyalty to the duties of his caste fighting against an obvious urge to exercise his own choice. But even through the tears, his gaze took on a stubborn, obstinate steeliness that even Ixchel lacked as Oacaxo stared back at her.

"Only victim family can intercede for criminal," he whispered just loud enough for the witch doctor and the night elf to hear, staring at Ixchel in a way that seemed unnervingly odd.

Tirith twisted and turned inside, her calmness that she'd focused so hard to achieve thrown off balance just as violently as Ixchel's smug sense of victory. Before either of them could even react, he'd already brought the executioner's sword down and disembowled himself.


	19. July 12, year 24, B

_July 12, year 24_

Blood splattered in Tirith's face, caking her medium purple skin in the thick, coagulating liquid and shocking her beyond all hell along with the onlookers. Medium blue, just like her hair; just like the manes of all the people of the tribe. It stained the weathered ivory of the executioner's sword that same shade of blue, signifying the rather unique biology of the progenitors of her race. People gasped, a woman in the back yelped and the witch doctor shrieked just at the same time that the night elf did. It only took Tirith half a second to realize that Oacaxo had executed himself rather than her, but that was already half a second too late for his deceptively fast hands.

His hands and the hilt of the carved sword made of bone partially obscured the wound, but she could tell that after stabbing himself in the midsection, he'd dragged the blade in order to leave a cut the size of which terrified her. Tirith dove in vain, wishing she could turn back time and fling her neck in the way so as to accept her end and prevent his. Before she could even reach his side, a brute force slammed into her rib cage and sent a sharp pain in her side that woke her up from her stupor. The wind soared right out of her lungs as her feet left the ground, and she found herself in a heap at a bystander's feet as Ixchel knocked her away and grabbed the sword away from Oacaxo lest he hasten his own death any more than it already had been.

A primal scream rang out as Ixchel howled at the sky, fury and devastation shining in her flickering eyes. Her voodoo power waxed and then waned, as unstable as the witch doctor's emotional state as the crowd of locals that had remained watched uncomfortably, save a few who snuck away.

"You fool!" she screamed at Oacaxo, frustration mounting as the woman obviusly realized that he'd made his choice, and made it in a way that she couldn't simply overrule. "You stupid fool, what you make! What! WHAT! How you make this! After all we make for you, you throw the all away!"

Head throbbing and heart pounding, Tirith forced herself to her hands and knees, desperately trying to inspect Oacaxo's condition. Lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood, he made no attempts to apply pressure to the wound or save himself at all. In his eyes, she saw the same exact acceptance of and even calmness before death that she'd felt just a few seconds before, and perhaps even more strongly.

The wound was...grotesque. In her day, Tirith had seen many serious injuries on the battlefield. But she'd seen many different kinds of monsters die from less, she remembered. Felguards, dreadlords, doom guards, tauren, naga...none of them survived evisceration. Only the abominations of the Scourge and the Forsaken seemed able to withstand such greivious injuries, and they didn't count since they were undead. The matter was finished; there was no walking away from that.

His situation didn't seem to lessen Ixchel's anger as she continued to berate him.

"Oacaxo, why! I try make you right; how you make wrong now!"

Defiance bubbled up in his gaze even as his eyes started to glaze over. "Only...victim family can...intercede," he gasped, coughing up blue blood in between breaths. "And you victim...I hear you say starchild." Ixchel began shaking her head rapidly, her face pulled into a tight grimace as if she were experiencing muscle spasms in her cheeks and neck. Refusing to let up Oacaxo drove the point home even further. "I intercede...for starchild. Not hurt, Ixchel...and all people here, witness for my say." After his dying wish, he let his head lie in the grass, still alive but fading fast.

People in the crowd of onlookers - at least those who hadn't retreated - shuffled in place, but didn't even murmur. All eyes were fixated on the witch doctor and the fallen warrior, waiting for some sort of miracle to happen. Tirith knelt in the grass, shocked beyond the point of any movement save breathing as she tried to comprehend what had just happened.

An emotion that was almost softness but not quite splashed itself across Ixchel's entire being. It didn't entirely replace the anger, but it was definitely evident. Kneeling down, she grabbed him roughly by one of his tusks, yanking his head up so she could look at him properly. "We give everything, you, Oacaxo," she scolded, creating a highly personal display that made the other locals uncomfortable. "You big warrior; you make death penalty; you raid other people, crush many heads. Skullsplitter give you many kills of people!" She tried to push his entrails back into his stomach as she spoke, succeeding minimally.

Tired eyes looked back at her, speaking of decades of repressed resentment and remorse. While coughing up more blood, he just shook his head slowly, looking both apologetic toward her yet also absolutely certain in his choice. "No more, mother...no more," he whispered, unable to speak any louder.

Tirith choked on her own saliva at the last remark. Beneath all the war paint, Ixchel's features were difficult to discern, and the entire tribe all seemed to have the same color of manes and hides, preventing any sort of visual cues to their relationship from being noticed. But now...images and ideas of the sort of parent Ixchel would have been, in such a place, raced through Tirith's head even as the realization of what her friend had done riddled her with guilt.

Shallow breaths pumped up and down in Oacaxo's barrel like chest as his body struggled against the inevitable. His eyes closed, though he was still alive and likely would be for a few more agonizing minutes, and he seemed content that his point had been made. Standing and leaving him to bleed before the people, Ixchel rose and turned toward Tirith, murder in her eyes. Before the night elf could even react, the jungle troll had snarled, tackling her and grasping to strangle her. Too fast to even be properly seen, Tlazotzin leapt down too, grabbing Tirith by the shoulders and pulling her away. The female guard was too wary of the caste system to risk grabbing the witch doctor, it seemed, but made haste in pulling Tirith out of harm's way.

"Victim family intercede!" Tlazotzin cried out in defiance of their leader, leaving the crowd of onlookers stunned as they made to move to intervene.

"Oacaxo say not hurt starchild - intercession is law!" Huamac added over Ixchel's roar of defiance. A few more locals pointed the fact out as well before the witch doctor ceased her murder attempt and sufficed herself to literally shake in rage while staring the two guards down.

A level of spite Tirith hadn't seen in a long time filled the entire area as the callous, abusive mother realized that her peers wouldn't accept her violation of their laws. "You!" she barked at Tirith, who had stumbled to her feet and was hiding safely behind the two guards. "Leave! You here when finished five minutes, I kill you for trespass! And you!" she hissed at the two guards. "You take the fallen one, leave his body by the river! Not to be forgive!"

Disapproval made itself tangible among the crowd of locals, but the orders were likely w compromise. Were Ixchel capable of killing Tirith, then the witch doctor would do so, and five minutes to escape was a fair enough deal...if only the night elf's heart could accept what she was seeing.

Tlazotzin and Huamac moved forward, picking up Derrick's discarded scraps of clothing and trying to cover Oacaxo's wound the best they could. Carrying his large frame behind the shoulders and knee pits, the two moved him carefully out of view, disappearing behind the underbrush as Tirith suppressed the urge to cry. Repression of emotions had always been her specialty, and there was no time when she needed it more than then. Mentally, psychologically, emotionally, she had literally just finished accepting her own death alone in the jungle, having even stuck her neck out - again, literally - if it meant a dignified end and an easy escape from difficulty for her friend. Now the tables had turned, and she found herself the unwitting survivor as a person she'd been willing to give her life up for had given up his in her stead. Survivor's guilt wasn't new to her, but she had been entirely unprepared for it, and hadn't even yet begun to move beyond the denial stage when a few of the locals grabbed her by the arms and pushed her past them.

"Ixchel busy with guards; must to go now," a local man whispered to the night elf.

Beyond all lines of reason, the group of Skullsplitter tribespeople, hostile to all in the world but themselves, helped save a night elf by shoving her away from the plaza at the base of the ziggurat before she could even resist.

The next five minutes were all hazy. Very few of the tribespeople paid Tirith any mind save a group of children who stared curiously and a few elders who glared at her. Most of the acrimony had likely been expended on the humans, dwarves and gnomes who had already gone barreling out of town, and she was just another foreigner - and not as strange looking to the long eared, blue colored members of the tribe. The town was densely packed but not that big and Tirith quickly found herself out the front gate, ignoring even the beastmasters who just barely restrained their raptors from snapping at her on the way out. One last group of children passed her in the opposite direction as she departed, tagging her and claiming that she was 'it' before finding something more interesting to gawk at.

In the thick of the unsettled, untamed rainforest once more, Tirith forced herself to focus on following the tracks and sounds of the rather slow moving humans and dwarves who weren't that far ahead of her in order to continue repressing her feelings. She was still in hostile, unknown territory, and a base survival instinct - however weakened and twisted by her forced acceptance of a death that never came - propelled her forward, albeit at a much slower pace than was normal for her.

The whole ordeal almost didn't seem real. Had she really been that close to death? Had she really accepted it, after finding no means of escape? Had she truly understood that her millennia would finally end, and that she would finally discover whether the goddess would bless her by placing her among the stars in the sky that had been heroines in life?

Had it really been so close to ending?

Then why didn't it?

Tirith had no living family members. She had no friends in the Eastern Kingdoms who would mourn her for more than a week, and the twenty four other women of Serenity had all moved on just like she had. The world would have been fine if she'd been lost. It was more logical that way...and pretending that she could be perfectly logical was all she could do at that moment to prevent herself from simply breaking down in the middle of the woods and crying.

Her quasi successful attempts at repression and denial were only interrupted by the sound of the smuggled flare gun firing nearby, grabbing her attention rather quickly. The amassed humans, gnomes and dwarves had failed to do so despite their cheers and cries of relief just out of view behind a thick mess of hanging vines, and when she stumbled into their clearing, she elicited shrieks followed by sighs of relief and words of congratulation as the other members of the Alliance realized it was one they considered their own.

"Oh! Hey, wait...hey! You made it out alive!" the unarmored human soldier told her after recovering from the initial shock of thinking that the night elf was simply a short jungle troll. "Hey everybody, the last one of us escaped!"

"Thank the Light!" sighed a gnomish janitor who didn't even know her but simply seemed happy to see more people who hadn't been killed.

Empty words of consolation were shared among all as two and three more flares were fired, emptying the gun of its rounds as more attention was drawn to their spot. The person who had been firing it - a human whose torn and tattered clothes looked like those of a professional worker of some kind - turned to Tirith after giving the shaken young dwarven woman a hug.

"We're sorry for leaving back there; we all left each other," he said, speaking as if they actually knew each other when they didn't. "All of us were truly under duress. Are you hurt?"

The question easily registered in Tirith's brain, but she found herself unable to respond. Her throat itched and hurt, and she found herself pushing away the strain in the muscles around her eyes as she tried not to think about the droplets of Oacaxo's blood drying on her forearms, neck and left shoulder. Words refused to exit her throat, and she began to internally berate herself for the show of weakness in front of strangers. One of the gnomes who all seemed nameless and faceless to her patted Tirith on the leg, the highest place the tiny woman could reach, in an attempt to comfort her.

But before the tiny person could speak, everyone's ears were filled by the rapidly approaching sound of mechanical humming. Louder and louder, the noise created by metal bars cutting quickly through the air bounced off of every tree in the rainforest, even sending vibrations throughout the upper branches of the canopy. Far off in the distance, Tirith could see floating metal boxes hovering toward their clearing.

"The cavalry has arrived!" cheered the young male dwarf.

" _Air_ cavalry!" added a young male human before the two of them high fived in a way that would always make Tirith think of punching such people in the face no matter how dire the situation they shared.

Closer and closer the boxes flew, blowing hot, wavy air and gasses as the numerous people they carried pulled on levers and pressed buttons. Each one was no larger than a common horse, but they sounded much less pleasant as blades affixed to poles atop the vehicles spun through the air at breakneck speed. Red canisters marked 'flammable' stood out on each side of each vehicle, alongside the red nozzle on the bottom of each. Hovering overhead, the vehicles didn't need to circle in the manner that naturally flying creatures such as hippogriffs or gryphons did, instead floating up and down as the propellers held them in the air in a strange way.

Four of the strange vehicles was smaller than the others and bore no canisters or nozzles, and began to land in the middle of the clearing to the ballistic cheers and applause of the other escapees save Tirith. Before the first one landed, she could already see Marge standing atop it in a dramatic, statuesque pose like some sort of explorer on the edge of a boat reaching land. Her strange tinted glasses on her head and cigarette held motionless ly between her lips as she puffed spoke of someone who was very proud of herself. She descended, reveling in the adulation of all the escapees.

"We never forget our own!" the small woman bellowed over the roar of the propellers, flanked by numerous dwarves and humans exiting the four vehicles behind her, hauling the equipment of mortar teams with them. "Who wants a free ticket back to civilization?"

Not needing to be told twice, the numerous gnomes, two dwarves and most of the humans from the escapees crowded onto the four vehicles, filling in every possible space aside from the seats of the pilots. "And who wants a front seat view of the victory?" one of the pilots, also a gnome, asked the rambunctious, ragged passengers. The four vehicles quickly took off, leaving Marge, the mortar teams, two of the ragged but energized looking human warriors and Tirith in the clearing.

Straightening up as if to give a speech, Marge didn't look angry for the first time since the very confused night elf had seen her, posing again as the mass of floating metal boxes moved back toward Xlatl overhead. At least a dozen men from the mortar teams flowed around her and the rest of the group still on the ground, running at a surprising pace considering the fact that they were hauling equipment as they all raced each other toward the town. Confusion mounted even more inside of Tirith's mind despite the fact that she hadn't thought herself capable of being any more confused than she already was at the debacle at the ziggurat.

Marge unfurled two of the several rifles she had strapped to her wide, broad back and handed them to the human warriors before her. "You fellas know how to use these?" she asked while also dismissively shoving a hand ax toward Tirith.

"Yes ma'am!" the human who had been interrogated next to Derrick cried, eyeing Marge as if the diminutive, chain smoking woman was the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen.

"That's what I want to hear, soldiers. We've scouted this area from afar, and our surveyors had a contingency plan ready should all these savages ever become uppity." Marge pointed in the direction of Xlatl, obviously demonstrating the direction of their attack. "All trolls are weak to fire since they can't regenerate from it, and our gyrocopters will be safe from their grasp; we're going to flush these monsters out in no time. Are you all up to the challenge?"

"Yes ma'am!" the two humans replied.

Eventually, the reality of the situation began to register inside Tirith's befuddled mind. Still stung by Oacaxo's act of self sacrifice, shocked by the brutality of the vengeful tribe and confounded by how easily they'd let her go without a scratch, she struggled to form coherent thoughts and struggled even more to form coherent sentences in her fifth language.

"Wait...Marge, wait...the Skullsplitter let us go...why are we fighting them now? Can't the bloodshed just be over?"

The dwarf woman had already begun to march through the underbrush after the two eager human soldiers who seemed to ready to double cross the tribe that had freed them unharmed. Tirith stumbled and lost her elven coordination as she tried to both plead the town's case and follow the smaller people beneath the low hanging branches. Barely even listening, Marge just blew her off at first.

"Soldier, I don't know if you're aware of this, but people were _killed_ when you were busy getting yourself kidnapped. My assistant was turned into a barbecue skewer on the flagpole of that outpost. It's a miracle that Doctor Finklesnap and a few others managed to escape just in time." Trotting even more quickly, Marge looked over her shoulder condescendingly before continuing. "People died defending themselves from a baseless attack. Keep your loyalties in check."

Ignoring the insult, Tirith just clipped the hand ax to her belt and used both hands to push branches and leaves aside, trying her best to keep the commander's attention. "Marge, people were killed; and theirs were killed first," she reasoned. "Derrick murdered two of the tribe's children a few weeks ago. The tribe might have gone overboard, but they were only trying to apprehend a murderer of kids."

"Yeah, she's right - there are a bunch of kids at that town, but I can't remember where," one of the two human soldiers remarked from far ahead between the trees.

Suddenly, Marge's interest was piqued, and Tirith felt a sliver of foolish hope. "Kids?" the dwarf asked. "You say these monsters give birth to kids instead of laying eggs or something?" she asked sincerely.

"It's true, Marge; there are tons of children at this town," Tirith pleaded, though she felt a bit relaxed at the attention from the usually flippant commander. "Any attack will put them in danger - this isn't a military camp, so they're mixed in with the rest of the general population."

"Where? Which part of the town?" Marge asked intently.

"Most of the families seemed to live right toward the front beyond the ramparts - any head on attack would surely devastate their community."

Though she continued walking, Marge's face was clear enough once she removed her sunglasses for the seriousness to show in her expression. Speeding up to lightly punch one of the two humans in the arm, she addressed the whole group. "You, you remain back here with the Corporal," Marge told him, respectfully referring to Tirith at least by her Alliance rank for the first time. "We'll need you two to watch our rear and rush forward in case we're ambushed. He and I will take it from here," she finished while punching the other human lightly.

"Yes ma'am!" replied the first human, indistinguishable from the second due to their shared worn out but energized states and gung ho attitudes.

Slowing down until they came to a stop, Tirith leaned against a tree next to her human counterpart, feeling her pulse to similarly slow down to a more normal rate as she rested. The gyrocopters still boomed overhead and were almost in shooting distance of Xlatl, and it was all Tirith could do to just give Marge her space and pray that she called off the attack in time before anybody was hurt.

What happened next curdled her blood in a way that no experience had done to her since the War of the Ancients.

The assault commander and her temporary human assistant were already far ahead of Tirith, almost all the way toward Xlatl themselves but still within the hearing range for the night elf's sensitive ears. Tapping on some sort of gnomish device attached to her shoulder, Marge elicited an electronic screech before speaking into the little black box that let her voice be heard by all the pilots. "Attention crew; we have good news from Corporal Nightshade back here," the smug dwarf started without even flicking the ashes off of her cigarette. "Apparently, these things raise live young, and keep their nests just beyond the ramparts; DO NOT LET ANY OF THE LARVA ESCAPE. I repeat, do not let a single one of the young larva of the trolls leave this place alive or else they'll just infest another patch of our territory. Make sure to bomb the frontal nests first and we can pick off the mature specimens thereafter. Anybody who can bring me an intact pair of miniature larva tusks gets an extra reward!"

Laughing rang out from above in addition to the whirling of the propellers, followed by the loud roars of jungle trolls and the first streams of fire. Tirith clenched her chest as she felt a minor palpitation and buckled over, so severe was her shock at what felt like her worst nightmare coming true. Her head suddenly felt as if it were upside down and her heart screamed inside that she just imagined what the commander had just said, that it was a weird daydream and that there weren't really columns of fire raining down from the sky far ahead. But when Marge began barking more orders into the black box strapped to her shoulder, Tirith felt her skin crawl at the realization that it was all real.

Forcing herself forward as more shouts rang out, she flung herself through the dense greenery until she reached Marge's side, panting and experiencing difficulty breathing as her stalwart warrior's heart felt its every ethical code and core moral belief being violated. "Wait! WAIT! Marge, what are you doing!" she gasped in a much weaker voice than she had expected from herself, sucking in air as the entire forest floor lit up in front of her.

Partially ignoring the apoplectic night elf next to her, Marge just stood and watched the carnage unfold a mere thirty yards in front of them, puffing smoke as the human on her other side laughed in satisfaction. "Pest extermination," she muttered in disgust at the tribespeople rushing to defend their town. "Not get back to your backup post."

Tirith shook her head so rapidly that she felt even dizzier. Frantic, she searched in her mind for the right words to say, but found herself paralyzed by the scene before them.

Skullsplitter children of various ages ran back toward the main gate of Xlatl, passing by the rows of marching warriors. Massive and almost bestial in appearance, the jungle trolls were quieter than orcs and humans when marching to war but much more imposing as the skulls and teeth of enemies hung in strings over the corded muscle of their limbs. Spears, tomahawks and clubs were brandished as a few witch doctors tried to whip up a frenzy, creating what should have been an intimidating display.

All of that was easily wiped away as the first gyrocopter targeted the ranks with its nozzle. Gushing like a river, the liquid fire known as napalm poured all over them, destroying the oxygen in the area and literally melting flesh away until the bones of the warriors collapsed to the ground without any muscle or sinew to support them. The race's weakness to fire became very apparent as two more gyrocopters opened fire upon the next few ranks of Skullsplitter warriors rushing out of the gate, burning them into nothing before they even had the chance to attack. In a scene reminiscent of the great wars between their people and Tirith's people just before she'd been born, the trolls simply lined up to be engulfed in flames and singed into piles of bones and ash in a matter of seconds as they found themselves faced with technology far beyond their comprehension. For all the physical prowess of their bodies, the trolls were simply helpless in the face of a more advanced civilization, and the backwardness of their crude javelins and hurled rocks became very apparent once the first rank of the mortar team on the ground began to fire their rockets. Within seconds, the front walls had been blasted apart, as were the houses behind.

That, more than anything, spurred Tirith to scream loudly enough to cause the human assistant to jump and drop his rifle and for Marge to stare at her as if the night elf had gone mad. " **Stop! Marge, make them stop, there are** _ **children**_ **in those huts**!" Tirith yelled, dropping the hand ax she'd been given as she desperately tried to beg the dwarven commander.

"Shut up! Just shut up and calm down, you maniac!" Marge yelled right back, slapping Tirith's hands away. "You already told us where they nest their young, can't you see that we're handling it?" Marge callously pointed toward a long house where a pregnant jungle troll had literally _just entered_ a few seconds before it was hit by a goblin manufactured cluster bomb dropped by one of the gyrocopter pilots.

Knocking the human over, Tirith ran toward the mortar teams at full tilt, feeling her chest clench again when one of the teams fired a rocket into the highest series of tree houses near the center of the town, sending it crashing to the ground along with at least a dozen people inside. None of the teamsters even seemed to notice her until she grabbed one of the dwarves and used him as a living weapon to hit a human member of the same team.

" **Everybody, stop! Please!** These aren't soldiers, these are **kids** in the first huts, don't you understand!" Tirith screamed again, scaring the living day lights out of all the mortar teams as if they were the ones somehow being disturbed.

"Damnit - control her, she's been taken by bloodlust!" Marge shouted from behind them all at the same time that the gyrocopters switched to a more gaseous form of fire, like flame throwers, rather than napalm and began to burn all the trees that provided air cover for Xlatl.

The heat was unbearably intense, but Tirith couldn't focus on anything as she rushed to the next mortar team, which had fired off one last rocket toward an oncoming civilian militia from among the Skullsplitter. This time, the teamsters saw her coming and one of the dwarven members moved to intercept her, receiving a full force kick to his face for doing so. Shouting rang out as some of the teamsters ran away from the rabid night elf while others just stared in shock, unsure of what to do when one of their ostensible allies was trying to prevent them from attacking the enemy. A rather large human from another mortar team stationed in a row before the burned out town tried to grab Tirith from behind, only to receive an elbow to the side of his head that knocked him out cold.

Only a single shape pain in the back of her leg informed Tirith of the buckshot that had entered her skin; the sound of the rifle of one of the ragged human soldiers hadn't even registered due to the screams of the Skullsplitter townspeople, undefended once their warriors had all been burnt to death, filling her ears. However, Tirith refused to quit, disrupting the mortar teams even when limping and scaring them away from their rocket launchers. Since the ramparts had been entirely burned into embers, Tirith had a clearer view straight through the town to the ziggurat, where the flame throwers mounted on the gyrocopters had wrought a path of destruction. Rainforest trees had been overturned alongside all the burnt out huts, and vaguely twitching bodies whose flesh hadn't been entirely incinerated yet rolled around on the ground. Not a living soul could be seen, a testament to the vulnerability of even such physically power creatures toward the all consuming force of natural fire. Unsatisfied, the gyrocopters continued to burn every tree in the area, setting off a smoky forest fire and eve heating the stone of the ziggurat enough such that the pockets of oxygen inside of the concrete exploded, blowing bits of rock as the structure was destroyed by the immeasurable heat.

All Tirith could do was leave a trail of her own blood as she limped after the members of the mortar team, swiping at them frantically as she tried in the most vain futility to make some sort of a point even after the innocents of Xlatl had already been murdered. Unable to maneuver well enough after having been shot, Tirith found herself unprepared when the same human who has denounced Derrick to earn the jungle trolls' favor snuck up behind the dazed and exhausted night elf and grabbed her single good leg. She dug her claw like fingernails into the flesh of his bicep, but she'd been slowed down just enough for six more people to tackle her to the ground, pinning her thrashing limbs and even throwing a sucker punch to her chin when she tried to bite one of them.

Driven, primal and emotionally destroyed beyond what she could imagine, Tirith invoked every curse of Elune that she'd ever been instructed not to say, reeling as the teamsters unknowingly held her at an angle that forced her to view the empty, cinder filled spot where a town had once stood. Even if they were savages, even if they had imprisoned her while seeking revenge on Derrick, they were people, and their civilians were innocent; at least until they'd been killed. Now they were all gone.

Harsh footsteps rang out until Tirith had an upside down view of Marge. The angry dwarf stared down, not even trying to hide the satisfied, self assured smirk on her face. Hate like Tirith had never felt before boiled up inside of her, and tears of anger trickled down her forehead toward the ground as she realized the full extent of her failure to prevent the most morally disgusting massacre she'd witnessed since the loss of Suramar.

"You bastards, you fucking bastards, they were innocent people like our own!" Tirith screamed again, her voice becoming hoarse as she vented her anger and felt the heat rising in her temples.

Marge just took our her rifle and cracked open the latch of the barrel, revealing tranquilizer darts rather than normal rounds. "Would you shut up?" the angry dwarf mockingly told Tirith, garnering a round of laughter from the bruised and wounded teamsters that had been hurt. "You're the one who told us where we could find their larva; you must have been shot by their voodoo or something you damn psychopath."

Feeling her muscles pull and cramp as she helplessly struggled against the seven people pinning her down, Tirith almost thought she would pass out from the unreleased fury. "Psychopa... **me**? You worthless merchant's daughter, you piece of ram shit, you fucking _murdered_ elders and children! May every curse in the world be upon you, you stupid - arrrgggghh!"

Though Tirith couldn't see what had happened, she saw Marge drawing one of the tranquilizer rounds away and felt the residual pain of a withdrawn needle in her own arm. One of the people holding Tirith down applied pressure to the burning hole, and the night elf could already feel drowsiness taking over her mind. Finally, the gyrocopters stopped firing, satisfied that every living thing had been destroyed, and victory cheers erupted both in the sky and on the ground.

Denied even the ability to continue verbally venting, Tirith's vision became dark at the sides. The screams of the innocent children died out with the sounds of crackling flames, finally granting the shell shocked night elf some form of reprieve from the ugliness before her. All she could see was Marge's silhouette against the dying light of the burned town, the ashes of her cigarette miraculously remaining intact as the angry dwarf puffed without flicking them off. The empty darkness of drug induced sleep was the only reprieve Tirith would have from the horrors of what a true warrior never wanted to see.


	20. September 3, year 24

_September 3, year 24_

The musty office smelled like old paper and silverfish. There were no silverfish to be seen, but there was plenty of old paper given all the drab, boring looking books on the shelves behind the desk. Even the colors were boring - everything was dark brown, dark red or unpainted from the wallpaper to the couches to the very desk Tirith found herself sitting in front of. Aside from herself, the two armored humans just outside the open door and the gnome across from here, there might as well have been no color in the place at all.

Freshly out of her detainee's rags and dressed into plain cotton slacks and a shirt with the odd features that the outlanders called 'buttons,' Tirith at least felt comfortable physically. Anything was better than the crowded holding area she'd been sharing with drunks, prostitutes and pickpockets while her fate was decided by others.

Across from her, Dr. Finklesnap scribbled more of his endless notes onto a thin, fragrant piece of paper, ignoring Tirith entirely until he felt he needed more information from her. It couldn't have been a coincidence that the gnome psychiatrist had been appointed by the court as her mandatory anger management counselor; and since Agent Smithers had gone missing in the Plaguelands roughly a week before, Tirith found she had no more possible allies on the inside of the government to speak up for her.

After what seemed like ages even to a being as ancient as she, the gnome finally looked up and tore the sheet of paper off of his pad, revealing yet another sheet just like it that would also undoubtedly be filled within the next few minutes. "Let's review, shall we?" he asked rhetorically without even looking at her. "For the sake of your mental healthcare, your former camp commander has generously negotiated an honorable discharge from military service for you. After a psychotic break during which you attacked several of your comrades, you confessed-"

"Under duress," she interrupted him, doing her best to suppress any defiance in her voice while still defending her honor. It was a balancing act, and one that she wasn't sure she could manage.

Glaring at her but at least making eye contact for the first time, Doctor Finklesnap grimaced and wiggled his tiny, pointy goatee. "Alright, since you're still new to this, I'll accept your first instance of insubordination as simple stress from a change in surroundings," he talked down to her, lecturing as if she were a disobedient child. "You attacked your comrades during a rescue operation, in which you were _one of the people being rescued_. So you either suffered a psychotic break - as you already confessed to in writing - or you knowingly attacked a comrade in defense of the enemy. Plus, you lied in your signed confession and the second signed document I have here from you where you signed to acknowledge that you were not under duress during the first confession." The gnome waved a sheet of paper in front of her that she knew all too well, and Tirith just sank into her chair when he stood his ground. "You aren't a liar, are you Tirith?" Doctor Finklesnap asked slowly as if she wouldn't understand him otherwise. The mock friendly grin masking his irritation only added salt to the wound.

After staring daggers at him for a few moments, she mumbled her dishonest affirmation and folded her arms in front of her.

A victorious grin spread across the doctor's smarmy face. "Good, glad to see that we're on the same page. May I continue?" he asked condescendingly, though he didn't actually wait for her to answer. "So the Alliance valiantly exterminated the Skullsplitter threat after those mongrels sacked out observation outpost without any provocation at all-"

"Two of their children were murdered," she interrupted involuntarily.

Without any escalation at all, the gnome raised his voice to yell so loudly that the two armed guards outside the door of his office poked their heads in. "Tirith calm dow - I said calm down!" he repeated after himself despite the fact that she wasn't interrupting him, and she got the distinct feeling that he was attempting to portray her as unruly for the sake of the two guards in the hallway. "We're all trying to help you Tirith, don't you see that!" he cried out while sweeping his hands toward the two guards who looked like they wanted absolutely nothing to do with the entire exchange.

Suspicion floated into her mind; she'd already been betrayed by the Alliance government enough times not to trust anyone she met. Tirith couldn't be entirely sure whether the doctor was trying to build some sort of a case against her or not to have her locked away for good - he, Marge and the latter's now deceased human lapdog had already conspired to do so once. Anything she said could prove incriminating at a later date, and the night elf found herself uncomfortable speaking behind another token affirmation.

"Fine."

Smiling stupidly, Doctor Finklesnap seemed to revel in how easy his job had become. "Fine. I'm glad we've come to an agreement. Now, Tirith...we need to focus on putting these bizarre fantasies behind us," he said while clasping his hands together gingerly. "I need you to admit the truth: the government did not commit 'genocide' or 'ethnic cleansing' anywhere. We carry the burden of educating and enlightening the less civilized races of the world, just like what we did with your people when your grand sorceress appealed to join the Alliance."

"She didn't..." Tirith meant to say that High Priestess Tyrande didn't appeal to join anything, but rather accepted one of many repeated invitations to join. At the last second, however, Tirith deemed it unwise to argue about anything, even when her nationalistic pride was insulted.

Once he was satisfied that she'd censored herself properly, Finklesnap continued. "So what I need you to admit, Tirith, is that the government merely upheld its duty of bringing the Light to those monsters, and they chose to fight us instead. And as multiple witnesses testified, you physically attacked and injured several of your comrades who were only trying to save you. You have Silvermoon Syndrome, Tirith; you began to identify with an enemy that tried to sacrifice you to the blood god. And the sooner you admit that," he said while snapping his fingers at her rudely for emphasis, "the sooner you can start to move on."

Memories of murdered children and fallen defenders of an extinct town flashed through her head before Tirith promptly shut them out, working hard not to show any emotion in front of the doctor. "Fine," she lied, staring into her lap once more.

Pleased, Doctor Finklesnap put his signature on the pointless sheet of paper gleefully. "Good, that's great progress, Tirith," he quipped in a suddenly joyful tone. "Now all we have to do us get past the messy issue of your two year treatment plan here at my office." The doctor continued to scribble notes on a second sheet of paper as if his bombshell wasn't a significant piece of news.

Every hair follicle on Tirith's scalp felt like it stood up. Another heart palpitation struck her, and for seconds that felt like hours, she found herself unable to respond. "Wh...what do you mean here at your office?" she asked shakily. "I have to keep sailing back her for two years?"

Nonchalant and downright dismissive, the gnome didn't even seem to notice the alarm in her tone of voice. "Sailing? Oh, no no. You're just legally obligated to live here in Stormwind for the next two years during your court appointed treatment," Finklesnap replied casually as if it weren't the least bit important.

Dizziness struck Tirith as she felt an irregularity in the rhythm of her heartbeat. A sense of shock like what she'd experienced when watching masses of civilians being massacred struck her, and she struggled to believe that she'd heard what she thought she'd heard. When Finklesnap just continued writing and she successfully felt the pinch she'd inflicted upon herself, she had no recourse but to accept the fact that what she heard was real.

"How?" she asked, struggling to form sentences.

Trying his best not to listen to her, the doctor pretended that he needed to shield his eyes with one hand while writing with the other. "How what?" he asked in obvious disinterest.

"How can I be required to stay here for two years?"

Sighing and setting his pen down on his desk as hard as he could, Doctor Finklesnap looked back at Tirith as if the question were a big waste of time. "It's simple, Miss Nightshade; your anger management care is a part of your plea bargain for avoiding prosecution over hitting your comrades," the gnome explained in annoyance as if it should have been obvious. "And we need you to remain here in Stormwind so we can actually monitor your progress in that anger management plan. Your identification papers have already been marked to notify authorities that you don't have permission to leave the Eastern Kingdoms, just as a precautionary measure-"

"I only had ten months left!" Tirith protested. Her voice was weak but audible as she found herself unable to remain silent any longer. "I even received the missive stamped both here and in Darnassus - my retirement is ten months away!"

"Yes, well, that's all null and void now - in order to prevent you from prosecution, we had to invalidate that decision-"

"You've added _two years_ onto my stay now! That's more than double the amount of time!"

"For your own good; it's imperative that you accept the court's decision," Finklesnap answered, an air of finality in his demeanor.

Waving a shaky finger, Tirith struggled to talk, lament, wallow and breathe all at the same time. "N-no, no this can't be!" she stuttered, losing all the command in her voice. "No, no, no, no, no, that's not fair!"

At that, Finklesnap looked up from his scribbling. "What's not fair?" he asked in sincere confusion.

"It's not fair that my time on this continent has been _doubled_ without my consent!" Tirith lamented, her voice becoming shrill in a way unbecoming of a sentinel, but she was beyond her desire to retain her dignity by then. "I applied for early retirement officially! I had every document stamped, and then stamped again! I contacted the right people, I completed every process! I adhered to all the laws and followed all the rules - I did everything the right way! I didn't do anything wrong!"

Though his dislike of her on a personal level manifested itself often, there was a tangible change in the way Finklesnap was looking at her. If only for one moment, his demeanor softened and he almost appeared to pity her, albeit in the way that people pitied apes who didn't understand why touching a hot coal would hurt their hands. "Miss Nightshade...who ever told you that playing by all the rules somehow means that you deserve to win the game?" he asked, once again rhetorically but at least not condescendingly. He even waited to watch her squirm, fidget and then acquiesce once she realized how naive her miniature tirade had been.

Folding her arms even more closely around herself, she found the hopelessness unable to dodge, and she felt as if her stomach were being dragged down into the floor. "I just want to go home," she muttered in defeat.

Cocking his head back in surprise, the doctor only shook in negation and returned to his scribbling. "You have no home to return to; I did the research," he commented casually as if it were inconsequential. "Apparently you're from some village in Ashenvale, which is now Alliance territory, re: the decision of your grand sorceress."

"High Priestess," Tirith mumbled while folding in on herself.

"Whatever. Anyway, it's Alliance territory now and there are zoning laws; you can't just set up a house on any piece of land you wish without a permit. The night elves follow written laws now, just like the civilized races of the world. Sentinels will require you to apply for a permit and then pay for the land in cash just like any other citizen. The only way you could live in free housing would be to move to Moonglade or join a barrow den, but you're too old to respec as a druidess this late in life - I checked on that, too. So even once you're done with treatment in the year twenty six, you won't have a home to return to across the ocean." When she just let her chin sink into her chest, the gnome continued his scribbling and chattering, no longer hostile once she submitted to his authority. "By the way, you'll need to find gainful employment within a week or else you'll be held delinquent under the court order - it's standard procedure."

Tilting her head up slightly, Tirith looked at the gnome incredulously. At every turn, she was hit with news that progressively became weirder and weirder, and she wondered when it would all just end. "But...wait a minute, doctor. They told me at the holding cell that I'm legally obligated to inform potential employers that I'm in anger management counseling!" she exclaimed in protest.

"That's right," he replied absentmindedly.

Furrowing her brow, she waited in vain for a reaction or more explanation from him, growing even more frustrated when she received none. "Well how am I supposed to find a job, then - nobody will hire me!"

"That's not my business," he replied more tersely and directly. "I'm your counselor, nothing more."

At least she had a new issue to focus on that occupied her mind and grounded her a little more in reality. A bit of anger worked its way to the top of her cocktail of emotions, and she even loosened the hug she'd wrapped herself in. "How can you logically say that? Nobody will hire someone in anger management counseling - they'll think I'm a liability. Can't the court at least give me an extension beyond one single week to find-"

"Not my business," the gnome repeated uncaringly. Even the way he shrugged without looking at her seemed half hearted, as if he couldn't be bothered to rebuff her via a full shrug. Tearing another sheet of paper off of his pad, he slid it over to her rapid fire and snapped his fingers toward the two armed guards waiting outside. "This is your prescription - just a little something to help you mellow out before a job interview. I'll send the guards to fetch you for our next appointment on Saturday."

"But wait..."

"Time to go, miss," one of the two guards said from behind her. Twisting in the chair, she saw one of the two footmen holding his hand out as if to help her stand up. The man didn't appear hostile at all, but his voice had been very firm and left no room for argument. For his part, Finklesnap simply swiveled around and began inspecting his bookshelf, signaling that the meeting was over and that he intended on speaking no more of the ruination of all Tirith's carefully crafted plans.

Opening and then closing her mouth when she found nothing to say, Tirith stood up on her own and walked out of the room, leaving the disinterested guards back at their posts as she retraced her footsteps toward the stairwell on the opposite end of the building. Once out of view of the guards, she tossed the prescription into the first available trash can and began counting the stipend of gold coins she'd been granted by the city police per standard policy upon her discharge from the local jail. It was a one time payment for food along with one week free at a terrible, roach infested inn for her to ostensibly get back on her feet, as if one week were enough time for someone unfamiliar with Stormwind to find a job and a place to live despite bearing the stigma of psychiatric counseling attached to her name on every job application. Three days of her free week were already up, and she had only just then been informed that she had a week to find a job; knowing the corrupt oligarchy that ran the court system in human lands, they would probably start counting that week from the moment she was discharged, giving her only four days in actuality to find a legal job that would sign off on court papers that they accepted the risk of employing her.

So nauseating was the reality that Tirith promptly shoved the gold coins back into the pocket of her stiff, starchy pants and opened the door to the first balcony she passed in the long hallway. Opening windows without permission was considered an offense inside most professional buildings in Stormwind, but when she felt the twinge of sweat on the inside of her cheeks as if she would throw up the stale crackers she'd eaten for breakfast, she no longer cared about breaking any more rules.

The air in Stormwind was polluted by the large amounts of smithies in the city, in addition to the small scale factories near the port. Her appointment had been early in the morning, and forcing herself to switch to a diurnal schedule against her body's natural inclinations had damaged her health. Leaning over the balcony, Tirith closed her eyes until she felt the pangs of disgust in her stomach pass, leaving her instead with the crushing realization of all that had happened to her.

Truly, she'd coped with the fact that she'd witnessed a horrifying war crime only two. I the prior as well as one could be expected to; perhaps even better than expected. And after she'd accepted dying during that incident, she'd better put into perspective the fact that she had no family and no particularly close friends once Serenity Grove had been spoiled and its twenty five original inhabitants scattered. If anything, Tirith had spent the past two months almost getting used to the fact that both she and the world would be better off if she spent her last decade or two or however much longer she had left to live alone, without attachment to others. Emotional attachments were difficult for a being her age to build up easily, and they would only lead to heartbreak in the end. But if the end were so near, why couldn't it be comfortable? That was the question in the back of her mind. Couldn't her remaining years in the world of the living at least be easy, carefree ones? What had she done wrong to be cursed by the burden of written laws and heartless, machine like societal constraints -

"Tirith!" called out a familiar voice from the ground below the balcony.

Snapping her eyes open, she looked down to see two more night elves in the cobblestone street below, waving toward her as she squinted in the sun to get a better look at them. "Soraya? Pontus?" Tirith asked in pleasant surprise.

From the second floor of the building, it wasn't difficult at all to hear them, especially on a rather empty side street. "Night elf network!" Soraya joked in Darnassian while adjusting a uniform that Tirith assumed was a part of her job as the Kaldorei consulate. "We heard of your presence the moment they brought you here in town in chains, and got the run down from a bailiff from Darkshore who overheard the details of your detention. We've been waiting for your release ever since...hey, just jump on down here, I'm tired of shouting!" the younger night elf female laughed.

Her spirits greatly raised, Tirith gladly leapt over the railing of the balcony, soaring an entire story below but experiencing a rougher landing than she was used to and grunted when she stumbled. Soraya and Pontus both caught her before she slipped, and she felt a measure of embarrassment in front of her youngers. "I don't move like I used to," she confessed.

"Nonsense, the cobblestones here are tricky and smooth," Pontus insisted, though Tirith could tell that he was just being polite.

"We already know what happened. None of our people believe a word of it, by the way," Soraya assured her elder while respectfully brushing Tirith's shirt sleeves off for her. "We just didn't have a chance to come find you until we heard you were sighted this morning."

"Are there really that many night elves here in the city just hanging out and watching?" Tirith asked, only halfway joking this time.

"You'd be surprised. Everybody talks. Which you need to watch out for," Pontus chuckled. The good natured meeting warmed Tirith's heart, and after just a minute or so of speaking she could already feel her mood improving.

Before she could even delve into the topic of her current living arrangement, Soraya had already beaten her to the punch. "I heard that you were seen staying in some awful motel in the poor quarter. I hope you understand that I won't accept you to return there unless it's to fetch your belongings and come move in with me."

Blushing slightly at the offer, Tirith found herself rather embarrassed at the prospect. "Oh, Soraya...I don't-"

"Oh Soraya what?" Soraya laughed while pulling Tirith in a direction that she assumed was the woman's apartment. Pontus separated from them and walked a respectful distance away from the two unrelated women, likely worried about the aforementioned tendency of their people to talk about each other. "Come on, we can even get your things later. You look sleepy, just come crash for a bit and get your bed set up before you do anything else. It will be nice to see your home."

The word echoed in Tirith's mind, and while she was flattered enough to accept the offer temporarily, it was a reminder of how dire her long term situation was. "Soraya, it's a little more complicated than that...they're requiring me to remain here for two years for legal reasons-"

"You can stay even longer than that if you like," the younger woman insisted while locking arms with her, embarrassing her elder even further as Tirith realized that she had become a charity case.

Unable to disappoint her younger, especially when the woman was going to such lengths, Tirith swallowed her pride and accepted the charity for the time being; talk of her job search could wait for later. "May the goddess bless you, Soraya; I'd much rather have you as a roommate than the roaches," Tirith chuckled uncomfortably.

"Well I'd certainly hope so!" Soraya replied, and the trio continued walking past buildings and streets that Tirith didn't quite recognize. "I'm actually looking forward to having a roommate; it gets lonely sometimes, especially when Pontus is too busy to meet up."

"Which isn't that often, in my defense," the Druid replied heartily, making Tirith feel like a third wheel as her two youngers laughed together.

As if noticing her apprehension, Soraya quieted down for a bit and waited for the group to pass a few more streets before talking again. "Two years isn't a long time, big sister," she said softly to Tirith. "I know you might have had other plans, but it's possible to have a decent life here as well. Just you wait - it will be over before you know it."

"However it ends up feeling, Soraya...I will never be able to thank you enough for your kindness, or the goddess enough for willing you to be waiting outside that balcony at that specific moment," Tirith sighed, not entirely uplifted by her energetic young counterpart's attempt as reassurance.

It wasn't long before the three arrived at the apartment in question. After sipping on some green tea that Pontus grew, Tirith found herself quickly asleep as her biological clock tried to reset. As much as she wanted to believe in Soraya's words, the simple reality that Tirith faced - and that Soraya didn't - was that she was running out of time. And when she thought of how she would only have mere decades left, the two years hanging over her head weighed more heavily on her shoulders than the entirety of the Long Vigil. When coupled with the burden of court appointed harassment and nightmares of village children screaming, then Tirith knew she'd be in for a hell of a two years waiting for her freedom.


	21. March 14, year 25

**A/N: for those unfamiliar with the Warcraft timeline, the year 25 is the *official* beginning of the online game World of Warcraft; although Blizzard hates numbers and consistency, all canon lore counts Warcraft III as taking place in the years 20 to 21 and World of Warcraft vanilla as starting in the year 25. Since the story up until now took place entirely in the interim, this would be the first chapter where we're actually in the period of time covered by the online game, just for clarification.**

 **This is also one of the few chapters in the story that could almost be described as light hearted, so savor it.**

 _March 14, year 25_

If there was one thing that still bothered Tirith even after half a year of mellowing out, it was people deliberately ignoring her. There was a lot she'd learned to tolerate in terms of rudeness and lack of manners common among some of the outlanders - though not among all of them to be fair - and she'd like to believe that her patience for the stupidities of the modern world had grown.

Her court ordered therapy sessions, however, tried that patience more than any other annoyance in her life. If she had to sit in that chair much longer at Finklesnap jotted down his sloppy notes onto the thin, fragrant paper patterned in white, yellow and pink sheets.

"So Miss Nightshade, that job you got when you first got released," Doctor Finklesnap mumbled disinterestedly. "How's that working out for you?"

Resting her chin on her hands, Tirith made no secret of the fact that she was even less interested in their weekly sessions than he was. "Fine," she replied tersely, and so engrossed was he in his own notes that he didn't even notice her discourteous tone of voice.

"Uh huh, very good...it's a full time job, right? At the delicatessen down on seventeenth street?"

His answer was so obviously confused with another unwilling patient he'd no doubt had legally mandated to attend his sessions that she honestly wondered if he even remembered by Marge had tried to hard to screw her over like this. In fact, he didn't even stop writing his notes despite the fact that Tirith didn't answer at first, totally unconcerned whether or not she was actually telling him anything of use.

"I work part time at the Kaldorei consulate stamping papers I never actually read and giving directions to offices that have no relation to the papers I stamp."

"Mm hmm...mm hmm...that's good news," Finklesnap mumbled, as if she hadn't already been working there for half a year. "And how do you like your coworkers there?"

"They don't piss me off, at least," she mumbled right back, sending a passive aggressive jab that he didn't even notice.

Filling every uncovered square inch of the sheet of paper, the gnome even began to collect undried ink on the bottom of his writing hand. The tiny man had some strange obsession with conserving paper despite the fact that he had also let slip the fact that he was part owner of a lumber mill that had just begun operation in Darkshore - all under the auspices of the Kaldorei leadership's 'concessions' toward their allies for the sake of unity. Finklesnap obviously didn't care about preserving the environment and was most likely just a cheap skate who tried to make every piece of stationary last as long as possible.

Complete from just his first sheet, he tore off the white and yellow pieces of paper and folded the pink one back. Instead of actually facing her, however, he just continued scribbling even more on the pink sheet of paper. "And what sort of things piss you off?" he asked in a flat, monotone voice that insinuated that he wasn't even listening to his own question.

"People who write things down when talking to me instead of just looking at me like a living being."

Her narrowed eyes were a gamble; Finklesnap was someone of importance within the community, and his ties to business, government and medicinal research meant that a large number of people viewed him as a brilliant, benevolent figure. In the waiting room of his office, other patients occasionally spread rumors of people being signed away to a special hospital for the criminally insane, sentencing them to a prison of sorts that wasn't restricted by the standardized sentences and judicial oversight of the penal system. All of the talk consisted of rumors, however, since nobody in the waiting room had ever crossed the gnomish psychiatrist enough to end up in such a place.

Her risk proved imaginary, however, when Finklesnap seemed to grow even more engrossed in his work. "Interesting," he mumbled as if it were the least interesting thing he'd ever heard. The fact that his scribbling neither increased nor decreased in speed insinuated that he wasn't trying to antagonize her and truly wasn't paying attention. "And have you experienced any sort of nightmares or hallucinations?" he asked in passing, thumbing his way toward the end of a laundry list of questions he was required to ask.

Her guard down, Tirith forgot who she was dealing with and offered an honest answer. "I've _never_ had hallucinations, doctor; I told you that before. Sometimes when I dream, I just...see them. And see what happened back there-"

Her voice was cut off by the quick upward snap of the doctor's head. Without any escalation at all, his visage contorted into one of arrogant, recalcitrant outrage whereas it had been one of calm indifference just half a second before. Setting his pad of fragrant papers and his pen down on his desk in a way that a gnome might have found to be forceful, the psychiatrist folded his hands and pursed his lips to an almost comical degree, leaving forward in an attempt to intimidate his legally bound patient.

"Miss Nightshade...we've talked about this before," he scolded her, pronouncing every single word carefully not out of a condescending idea that she couldn't speak Common, but rather out of a legitimate threat he was making. "You've been told, and you've even signed your name. You're well beyond this...this... _nonsense_ ," he sneered at her almost hatefully. " **Nothing** happened. You experienced a psychotic break and invented a fantasy in your head in order to block out the memory of assaulting your comrades, men gracious enough not to have pressed any charges after Marge interceded on your behalf. You need to **stop** indulging in these immature stories you're making up immediately." He continued to glare at her for effect until she thought twice rather than defend herself any more, and once she repressed her anger, the urge to crack his head open and the irregular rhythm she felt beating inside her chest due to said repression, Tirith just stared into her lap. Satisfied that his point had been made, Doctor Finklesnap relaxed his posture and fished a transparent, neon orange vial and slammed it on the desk as hard as his little hands would allow before sliding it across toward her.

At first she hesitated, but when tried to give her his almost comical death stare again, she just grit her teeth and picked up the vial. "What are these?" she asked plainly, refusing to display any hint of emotion in front of him lest she allow him to think that he'd actually gotten inside of her head.

"You aren't in any place to ask questions," he scolded her while scribbling at lightning speed on another sheet of paper. Tearing it off of his pad, he passed it along toward her. "This is your prescription for when the first vial runs out. Two pills, twice a day before food. Start now."

A minor staredown ensued as the two of them glared at each other across the desk, unbeknownst to the two armed guards waiting in the hall. Logic dictated that Tirith shouldn't play with fire, but she was almost at the end of her limited patience for the awful little man.

"I'm not hungry. I don't feel like eating-"

"Tirith _calm down_!" the little liar yelled, not even bothering to mimic the expression of somebody who was afraid. He looked like the psychotic one as she yelled in fright when clearly on the verge of boredom by the looks of his facial expression. "We're trying to _help_ you, don't you understand that?"

One of the two guards peeked inside and rolled his eyes. If it came down to a conflict, the armored human would most assuredly support the doctor just to resolve any problems, but it was obvious that even he was tired of the stern medical practitioner song and dance. Knowing that even one more word could cause her to incriminate herself, Tirith sufficed herself by snatching the vial away quickly enough to make the psychiatrist jump.

"Fine," she huffed while popping the white top off of the vial and sticking two pills in her mouth.

Unsatisfied that his point had been made in this specific instance, Doctor Finklesnap began to puff up his chest as if he were preparing some sort of devastating blow in battle. "Guards, I need you to inspect the patient's mouth to ensure that she's actually swallowed her medication," the gnome announced while staring directly at the night elf across the table.

Like a deer in the headlights of a gnomish mechanostrider, the first guard just stared into the room through his saucer eyes. The second conveniently made himself scarce, abandoning the first to one of the doctor's awkward tasks. After living in Stormwind for six months, Tirith had learned enough about the ways of the humans to know that they were extremely patriarchal - far, far more than orcs and probably on the same level as trolls and centaur - and had a soft spot for damsels. Despite her stature, Tirith gave the guard the best sabre kitten eyes she could, earning an outraged gasp from Finklesnap as she proved that he wasn't the only one who could manipulate others when pressed.

Viewing the ancient warrior with chivalrous, sympathetic eyes that had no idea how many demons, monsters and even humans those two purple hands had killed, the guard involuntarily shook his head and stepped back. "Nope. Er, I mean...she's clear," the man mumbled before making himself as equally scarce as her parter.

Finklesnap's jaw dropped open so wide that his pointy goatee almost poked the surface of the table. "What! Guards, you...hey! Tirith! Tirith, come back here _right now_!" the gnomish psychiatrist fumed from atop his chair that was too high for him to easily descend and chase her.

"Thanks for the medication doc, see you next week," Tirith said with an immature finger wave that she knew was unbecoming of someone of her prestige, but which was also oh so very satisfying when it had the desired effect of garnering a string of curses in gnomish as Finklesnap found himself too angry to properly work the lever and descend from his high chair. If he could get away with taunts and subtle insults since they were impossible to substantiate, then so could she.

Jumping over the balcony like the first time she'd left the building, she quickly took the back alleys to make her way home, giving the doctor no opportunity to grab a few guards and accuse her of something she hadn't done. By that time, she'd at least learned how to find her way to a few familiar places based on habit, though that was the upper limit; human buildings and streets tended to all look the same, and there were certain parts of Stormwind that Tirith simply hadn't visited before.

It only took her a few minutes to reach the apartment just one side street over from the grassy area where Kaldorei tended to congregate. Passing by numerous people of different races and only a minority of night elves, she promptly found her way to the five story apartment building in question, leapt up the stairwell to the fourth story just to ensure that her skills stayed sharp even after unofficial retirement from combat and passed two more of her kind in the hallway whom she greeted only by bowing. For someone as nationalistic and perhaps slightly prejudiced as Tirith, living in a neighborhood full of her own kind should have been a boon to help her psychologically make it through the two year sentence of therapy.

What it had turned out to be, however, was one of many false promises. Gossiping with her fellow Kaldorei about what other Kaldorei were doing or wearing, or whom they were dating, wore out relatively fast. There was talk of news and current events, none of which interested Tirith considering the fact that she was, whether legally or not, forever removed from the battlefield. Listening to younger warriors describe their exploits was entertaining but painful in a way as well, and after the first month she had found herself becoming more withdrawn. When she started hearing all the comments about how beneficial most of the night elves found their people's membership in the Alliance to be, she simply had to excuse herself from most social circles. True, most of the population did benefit; after the loss of Nordrassil and Mount Hyjal - where more than half the world population of their people lived - the assistance from the Alliance allowed the survivors to resettle in big cities. But for those from the marginalized villages such as the women of Serenity, a deep sense of betrayal settled in, alongside a healthy dose of jaded skepticism about their own race.

All of that stopped the moment Tirith walked through the door of the tiny but very cozy apartment she shared with Soraya - a woman who was brilliant at military logistics but was by no means a deep thinker or given to conversations on serious topics.

"Tirith?" the younger night elf asked from the bathroom, where she appeared to be brushing her hair. "You're home a little early, aren't you?"

Kicking her shoes off and sprawling on the only couch they owned together (Tirith paid for as much as she could afford inside the apartment to save face after having been taken in as a charity case), the older night elf closed her eyes and rested for a moment. "I was given the day off because Fickelsnot insisted on this week's session being during working hours. You were the one that signed off on that, remember?"

Partially occupied by all her hair, Soraya didn't seem to think about the matter too hard. "Oh...I guess I did," she replied noncommittally, and then returned to spending an inordinate amount of time on her hair for someone from a militaristic, matriarchal society.

Barely even looking up, Tirith watched her move from the bathroom toward the front door, barely spending more than a few minutes in the apartment after the older elf had just shown up. "Lunch meeting?" Tirith asked nonchalantly.

Misunderstanding her intentions, Soraya froze for a moment and looked by apologetic and uneasy. "Hmm? Oh...well, yes, there's a new seafood restaurant by the port, and...um...Pontus says it's really great." Wringing her hands for a moment, Soraya fidgeted as if afraid that Tirith would insist on coming, making her elder feel not left out so much as like a burden on her friend. "Do you want me to bring anything back for you?" Soraya asked while looking at her shoes, almost embarrassed to ask the question.

Had Soraya simply been honest about wanting to meet Pontus without her, Tirith wouldn't have cared at all. The more indirect nature of the younger elf's speaking, however, just made Tirith feel like the ultimate third wheel and borderline unwanted. "No, no, you two go have fun. I'll make do here," the older elf replied for what felt like the hundredth time.

Easily reassured as always, Soraya bowed politely before hurrying out the door, locking it behind her even with Tirith inside due to their shared paranoia about burglary in the somewhat dangerous human capitol. The younger's soft footsteps padded down the hallway and over to the stairwell, where they were soon engulfed by the sounds of the light foot traffic on the streets outside. For a few moments, Tirith just stared at the wall next to the door, trying to think of something to do. Even on normal days, the part time nature of her job left her with ample free time, and boredom was her constant enemy as she waited out her two year sentence in Stormwind.

If there was one thing she was never short on while there, it was sleep. Even after the disruption to her circadian rhythm and Soraya's penchant for going out for a stroll at odd hours, Tirith had so much free time on her hands that she always felt well rested. That was at least one consolation of her current life of ignominy.

So when the unexpected knock came to the door after what couldn't have been more than an hour and a half, she found herself nearly falling off the couch in surprise. "The key isn't in the door this time!" Tirith shouted in Darnassian reflexively, remembering a running debate she and Soraya had been engaging in for at least three weeks.

What she heard next shocked her beyond all belief.

"Tirith? Is that you?"

Her long ears twitched, and she rubbed her salty eyes as she tried to ignore the person speaking in Common on the other side of the door. In an instant, her stinging eyes shot open and she froze in place, staring at the door as if it would suddenly become transparent for her.

"Khadijah?"

It took another second to register, but when the diminutive priestess spoke again, Tirith found herself literally falling off the couch this time as she rushed to clean up the mess of unwashed saucers and teacups Soraya had a tendency to leave everywhere.

"I was worried I had the wrong address!" the human joked from the other side of the door. "Is this a bad time?"

Banging her knee against a stack of smutty sentinel femslash novellas that Silviel had insisted had merit and then gifted to Soraya, Tirith shoved away enough of her messy roomate's belongings to clear a path toward the couch and the opposing loveseat, panicking in a good way as she realized that she'd received a guest other than Silviel for the first time. "Yes! No, it's a perfect time - I'm off work today!" Tirith replied just before she stubbed her toe on the leg of an end table and bit her tongue to avoid cussing. Finally stumbling toward the door, she tucked her bangs behind her ears and opened the door to find her long lost friend standing before her.

Usually, humans aged poorly - even as Tirith felt death approaching and the twilight years of her life ticking away, she still looked in the mirror every morning and saw no change from how she'd looked the day before. Humans, on the other hand, had a tendency to look old only a few decades into their lives, and the changes were as dramatic as they were rapid. Eight months was certainly long enough for such an unchanging being to notice the changes in a human.

Yet there Khadijah stood, her coffee colored skin just as beautiful as the last time Tirith had seen her. It was no wonder that the human had chosen to become a member of her people's clergy; there was a sort of light upon her face even when Khadijah wasn't smiling, and when she showed her teeth it seemed to calm everybody around her. She wasn't wearing the robes of her order, and instead wore a vibrantly multicolored set of robes along with a shawl that wrapped only partially around her head and ran almost past her knees. She always provided a rather interesting ensemble to look at, and Tirith didn't realize she'd been staring.

"Custom made," Khadijah said uncomfortably but cheerily, a combination she always managed to pull off. "Ta da!"

"What? Of course, I'm sorry," Tirith chuckled while moving aside from the door. "I apologize for the mess, neither me nor my roommate...um...we had a party last night," she lied through her teeth, not knowing what else to say.

Practically floating inside, Khadijah shut the door herself and looked at the couch and then Tirith before sitting down. Only when invited did she do so, holding her travel pack close to her as if she was worried about the cleanliness of the place. "I'm real sorry for dropping in unannounced," she said shyly.

"No, not at all! I'm delighted, actually," Tirith replied while searching in the kitchen area for food. "We have these dwarven pastries that they bake here, and then they're good for three days. These ones are only a day old; would you like to have them?"

"I wouldn't want to be a burden. Whatever you guys are able to share, really."

"Oh stop." Tirith organized the cheap, preserved pastries the best she could on a platter and grabbed two waterskins before sitting on the loveseat opposite her friend. The place always felt cramped when another night elf was sharing the space, but next to a human, the room felt rather comfortable. "How did you find me? That one letter I wrote telling everyone what happened was sent through the court, so I'm sure it didn't have a return address on it."

"No, it didn't, but I have my ways. And six months isn't a short amount of time for searching, either." Khadijah took a long sip of water, most of her movement rather slow and relaxed. "But I eventually managed to find you, and lined up a trip here with a visit as well. They sent me to scout for another assistant at the chapel to bring back to the camp."

"I hope that Marge didn't give you too difficult of a time over taking a day off," Tirith remarked while lifting one of the pastries to take her first bite.

"Oh, guess what? I'm not at Camp Freedom anymore." Khadijah suddenly looked mildly embarrassed. "I suppose that's the more significant news item, isn't it? They transferred me out."

"To where?"

"Another remote camp that hasn't been officially named yet. This one is a bit more active because it contains some reformed members of a...well, I'm not sure if they're former Syndicate or what, but they're rebelling against something and joined the Alliance."

Tirith took the time to listen and finish a bit of the pastry, finding her mood elevated greatly by the chance visit and how easily the two of them settled in to light chatting the moment the priestess walked through the door. "Did Sir Argyle transfer to the same camp?"

At that, Khadijah pouted for the first time. "No, he was also transferred but to another camp...it doesn't matter though because we broke up."

Tirith found it a chore not to smile at how quaint humans were over relations that spanned such minuscule amounts of time. She couldn't he but be moderately amused, but she knew it was obviously of some import to the priestess and withheld that amusement. "I'm sorry to hear that," she said in reply.

"If something isn't meant to be, then it won't be. William was a bit older too, you know - maybe fourteen years older," Khadijah explained, tasking Tirith with once again containing her amusement at how the human's viewed time. "And he didn't want kids, which I do want eventually. So when news of our transfers came around, we felt it best to split up."

"These things often work out for the best," Tirith said softly, lying through her teeth again for the sake of the human. She didn't believe such fatalistic jabber for a second, but she'd been emotional herself for long enough after the loss of immortality to know that sometimes people just needed to hear empty words to make them feel better. "And I'm guessing this rebel camp is also in the early phases, since you've been sent here on a recruitment drive?"

"Yes, that's correct. I finally learned of this address a few weeks ago so I was planning to drop by for a while. It felt...weird to just write you, I don't know why." Khadijah promptly stuffed a pastry into her mouth, perhaps some coping mechanism for when she addressed topics she found uncomfortable.

Tirith, however, felt just fine. "I know, I'm sure the circumstances under which I disappeared seemed...odd. Though in retrospect, I'm thankful that my discomfort prevented me from writing to you all again; a letter might have sat at the Camp Freedom post after your departure and then be read by someone other than the intended recipients."

The two of them spent a few minutes more eating pastries and drinking water until Khadijah finally broached the topic. "What really happened?" she asked quietly as if Soraya were eavesdropping from the other room. It was, again, quaint and a bit cute, and Tirith played along in order to put the human more at ease.

Taking a deep breath, Tirith sought in her mind for what details she remembered clearly, and then which details from those details she deigned it prudent to reveal to someone who wasn't there. "Derrick, the leader of that guild in the red and yellow tabards, killed two members of the Skullsplitter tribe. He was bragging about it the day that that other guild was massacred, by those...two tribespeople. It turns out that the two people Derrick killed were kids - little kids. I know for a fact that the tribe wasn't lying, because they paraded these little embalmed bodies and forced the rest of us to see. The mothers came and cried and everything, and even those humans from the observation post who were captured alongside me saw, even if they deny it. One of them even denounced Derrick publicly."

"How did the savag...the tribe understand him?" Khadijah asked curiously.

"Apparently, most of them outside of their major settlements speak Low Common. They've descended so far into darkness that they lost touch with their own language."

"That's...okay, that actually shouldn't seem so weird, then. Even the Horde trolls at Nesingwary's camp often speak Low Common very fluently."

"Right. So anyway, I know the tribe wasn't lying, because Derrick didn't even deny it once they shoved it in his face; he just tried to claim be didn't know, but they were half your height so it was clear. And that's why the tribe attacked the observation post; two of their kids were murdered. They took more lives than was their right while searching for Derrick - apparently he'd been spotted fleeing the scene of the crime all those weeks before - but they might defend their actions by saying that approaching an Alliance or Horde settlement results in them being shot at, so it was fair game."

A proud priestess of the Alliance, Khadijah had stopped eating and became a little downcast upon hearing the full story. Running a finger along her small chin, she appeared thoughtful as she considered a situation in which members of her faction had been killed. "Alright. Looking at it objectively, I understand the reason why they would say that...may the Light protect us all." She then looked up at Tirith as if expecting there to be more.

"Right...so I was knocked out cold during that raid and I woke up, where they paraded the two bodies and gave this mock trial for Derrick. Those gnomes, dwarves and the human females rescued with us were let go after just a little jeering from the locals, but one of the tribe's leaders understood that they'd been wrongly imprisoned."

Khadijah looked confused. "They claimed later on that they escaped through a tunnel in a hill," she said, looking unconvinced by the words coming out of her own mouth.

Tirith already felt the heat of displeasure flowing in her veins, but controlled and concealed it. "What? That's a bold faced lie; they know I would have disputed them had we given statements to the authorities at the same time. They were set free because the tribe knew they were looking for a human male. The other human males were set free after they all distanced themselves from Derrick, which none of them hesitated to do. Even I was..." A quick pain stung down in Tirith's very core, and she pretended to be in deep thought while she worked to repress the memory of one of her only friends' sacrifice for her. "...I was let go as well, after the mock trial."

Playing with one of her braided dreadlocks absentmindedly, Khadijah looked absolutely focused despite the mounting confusion written into her features. "The few whose statements I saw all claim they valiantly fought their way out...it sounded fishy even then, how a group of beaten and unarmed people would be able to fight their way out of a Skullsplitter town when the town was found undamaged by the first gyrocopters."

"A lot of what happened there sounds fishy if you listen to official reports," Tirith muttered regretfully as she stuffed the rest of her pastry in her mouth.

On the one hand, it felt good to finally tell somebody what happened - she hid the matter from Soraya and the others at the consulate for fear of a claim counter to the deposition she'd been forced to sign damaging her job position, however boring it was. On the other hand, digging up these old memories brought her a pain much greater than the relief of confession, and a mouthful of sugary, fatty dwarf snacks that she shouldn't have been eating in the first place was the only thing that kept her mind distracted from the memories of the screams.

An unease settled over them both, and once they finished eating and drinking, Khadijah sent the big night elf woman a stare that she knew meant the climax of the conversation hadn't yet been reached. Twirling one of her braids in her fingers, the small human cleared her throat before speaking. "And the battle occurred after you were all let go, then?" she asked.

Tirith leaned her head in one hand balanced on the arm of the loveseat. "Yes...gyrocopters shooting columns of flame from the sky, and mortar teams shooting rockets from the ground. They used cluster bombs as well, which are only manufactured by the Venture Company. They're blacklisted by both factions, but I know what I saw."

Her mood dampened, Khadijah appeared to be running through painful memories of her own. "You don't have to convince me, Tirith. I served as a medic in the Swamp of Sorrows during my training. The government also bought land mines from the Venture Company to seed around a Horde town, which counts as three violations of the law. I know the ugliness that goes on away from Stormwind," the human confessed with a twinkle of pain in her eye.

Relieved that she was at least understood, Tirith stopped censoring herself quite as much. "Then you won't be surprised at what happened, and I probably don't even need to elaborate much. I warned Marge that there were children in that town. Even if they sacked an outpost of ours, that outpost was military personnel only; there wasn't even a single civilian. Even the cook signed on as a military contractor. For us to level an entire town full of mostly non combatants was entirely uncalled for."

"So I'm guessing that I was correct to assume your confession to experiencing a psychotic break was forced." There was a hint of dark humor in Khadijah's voice that Tirith would never have expected from the shy, conservative cleric in a thousand years, and the two of them actually shared a laugh.

"One hundred percent. One hundred and ten percent. It was under duress and the threat of prosecution. I think I was shell shocked for sure, but I knew what I was doing when I attacked the mortar team. I believed...really, I believed that I could delay them enough for just one innocent person to escape," Tirith said while staring down at her bare feet. "But that belief was false. I was too late. Nobody escaped the walls of that town alive." Closing her eyes, Tirith took consolation in the fact that after eight months of coping, she had at least reached a point where she could finally recall her failure without becoming weepy or selectively mute. After a few seconds, she'd sacrificed that much more of her cardiovascular health by just repressing the negative feelings and forcing herself to move on.

Easily falling into her role as camp counselor, Khadijah shifted on the couch and Tirith felt the human's small hand on hers. "I believe you, Tirith. I know that one person believing you doesn't change what happened, but know for a fact that you're not alone."

Holding on to the smaller fingers, Tirith pinched the bridge of her nose and considered actually opening up to a being so much younger than her. It felt humbling in a way - almost too much. But for millennia, her people had been almost entirely without emotion; just as they were unaccustomed to death and illness, they were also unaccustomed to dealing with their feelings. And like the former two, the reality was that the younger lived races were also more knowledgeable of the latter. Swallowing her pride, she allowed just a sliver of her vulnerability to show.

"What now? Dreaming of them is rare, and during the day I no longer think about it much - not like in the beginning. But what am I supposed to do? I know of a great evil that occurred. So I just live my life as if it never happened?"

"What else is there to be done, Tirith?" Khadijah asked rhetorically, displaying a cold objectivity that the night elf respectfully admired. "If there are no survivors, there is way for you to try and provide help to anybody. If you were pressured it to signing a legal document denying what happened, then you can't safely try to raise awareness about the issue. And if you aren't exactly plagued by the images of what occurred, then there isn't much reason to return to the site to pray for the fallen." Sighing deeply, Khadijah almost seemed conflicted herself at what she was about to say. "Sometimes repression of difficulties we can't change, and can't draw lessons from, is the only realistic option. That isn't a popular thing to say nor inspiring, but it's probably the truth."

The conversation skipped another beat as the words sank in to Tirith's mind. They were logical, and wise beyond the years of the relatively young priestess sitting across from her. That didn't make it entirely easy to accept, but certainly easier than had she not opened up to the small human. The two of them sat there, happy to simply see each other again before Khadijah spoke again.

"Tirith...can I ask you something?"

"Yes, of course. I suppose I opened the door, so let me have it."

"Alright, thanks," the human chortled. Her pleasant smile didn't lessen her unease at the question, however. "You're retired from combat, officially or not. And you don't have any family members, according to what you once told me, way back when. What are your plans?" There was a strong sense of concern laced in Khadijah's voice that she failed to hide, causing Tirith a bit of embarrassment as the feeling of being a charity case crept up on her again.

Tirith opened her eyes once more, letting the silver light reflect off of the teacups as she avoided the other woman's gaze. Her heart sank at the thought, a reminder of the topic she'd tried not to dwell on too much. "My people are...unaccustomed...to such matters. None of us who are still alive ever expected to die. And so, I find myself not thinking about it."

"And you view retirement in the context of dying?" Khadijah asked cautiously, and Tirith could tell that the human was trying to make a point.

"What else is there, Khadijah? You said it yourself: I have no family. I was a soldier for thousands of years, and now I'm not anymore. I work part time and don't earn enough to save, and I won't be able to collect my pension until I'm done with this anger management stuff after another year and a half." She sighed ever so slightly through her nose, thankful for the fact that Khadijah wasn't the type to assume a pause in speech was an invitation for the other person to interrupt and start talking immediately. "I've spent a quarter of my mandatory time here in Stormwind just trying to get over the circumstances of my discharge from active duty. I figure that the other three quarters will be plenty enough time to figure out where to go from here."

"Will Soraya accept you continuing as her roommate?"

"Yes, of course. I think she enjoys living with someone whom she trusts not to gossip about her or judge her for her behavior. And my part time job will be there if I wish to remain at the consulate. If I wished to cohabitate with Caledith - that's the mother of my friend Silviel - then I'd be welcome as well. Neither case is preferable; I'm not happy here and two jobless, assertive night elf women in one house and not much to do is a recipe for disaster."

Khadijah frowned. "I'm glad that your material needs will be taken care of either way; it's important to have a backup plan. But I truly hope that you can think of other alternatives and work toward them. We should never give up striving for more."

"I know. Starting to plan is the hardest part."

Having passed the reacquaintance phase of her visit, the human set down the teacup and saucer, as well as her travel bag. "I hope you don't mind if I impose, but my own work in the city is finished. And it's so rare that I'm able to travel to Stormwind..." The light hearted hint in Khadijah's voice was as heartening as it was innocent, and always quaint in a way. Tirith immediately understood and rose from her seat.

"Come on. No reason to spend much more time cooped up in here. I'm not an expert tour guide, but I've learned a few interesting things to see while here."

The two of them rose and stretched before going, though the human surprisingly made it out the door first; since Khadijah never removed her shoes before entering, she needed less time to prepare herself and was soon out in the hallway.

Bending over to put her outside slippers on, Tirith braced herself against the kitchen counter. She was tall enough that she could reach halfway across the human sized common room in the apartment, and it was a ritualized motion she hadn't given much thought since moving in. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied something dangling from the door handle of the pantry. Loose and hanging, she had hung it there ages ago alongside a few burlap potato sacks and a string with a compass on it.

Behind all of it sat a necklace containing the four tusks of two Zandalari trolls. Killed in a war between tribes that the outside world hadn't even heard about, the deceased owners of the two grisly trophies had been part of Tirith's ticket out of trouble once. That conflict in and of itself was irrelevant to her experience and all she'd seen, but since her armor had been confiscated after her admission to court ordered counseling, the grim necklace was her only connection to that brief period in her recent life. Even her easel had been given away, and she found herself wearing whatever night elf sized clothing the court had been able to gift to her in the immediate aftermath of her transfer to the capitol.

The tusk necklace didn't jingle unnaturally. It didn't somehow sway, and there as nothing that moved the burlap sacks aside to reveal more of the white ivory. By all measures, there was no reason for her to notice it this time when she'd ignored it every other time before during all those months. But there they were, grabbing her attention merely by existing. A prayer she'd never uttered conceptualized itself in her mind without words, reminding her of the fallen she still hadn't properly mourned.

"You coming?" Khadijah asked from out in the hallway.

Tirith stared into the ivory for a few more seconds, wondering what she was doing.

"Yeah, just fighting with my slippers," she replied while fumbling with her keys and locking the door behind her. "Let's go enjoy the city."


	22. June 2, year 25

_June 2, year 25_

Three minutes. Images of Tirith's packed bags waiting for her at her apartment superimposed themselves over the gnomish designed wall clock at the consulate. Three minutes.

All alone in the records section in the basement, she sat at the naturally grown desk that she'd been assigned for her duty all those months. One of the few familiar tastes brought from home, the authentic style of the wisp constructed mahogany almost made her feel comfortable at the dull, drab basement. The connection to nature was weak in such a polluted, crime ridden city as Stormwind, and the druids in charge of growing the structure for the night elf consulate had to conjure stone from deeper within the planet rather than wood as most of their people preferred. The end result was a building that still bore the traditional arches and lanterns of their people, but carried a visual aesthetic closer to the ancient highborne style rather than post-arcane forest dwellings. By telling herself that it was simply reminiscent of the ancient strongholds in Silithus that she'd visited, it became easier to look at.

That didn't make the basement any less depressing. One other person, a dwarven contractor who got along fine with everybody, was employed in the basement as well, filing records in boxes on her little foot ladder. Records for what, Tirith did not know; all she had to do was stamp them, marking that they'd officially passed her desk before being filed by the contractor. That contractor was usually upstairs finding other things to busy her small hands with, leaving the ancient elf by herself. Whether that was a good thing or not depended on Tirith's mood on any given day; and lately, her moods had been swinging a lot more than usual.

Perhaps that explained her decision. She leaned forward on the desk and smiled blankly at the wall as she daydreamed about her choice, leaning her chin in her hands. To take a vacation when she was bound to anger management counseling was a gamble; she'd need to skip at least one session with the gnomish psychiatrist, and then face the little control freak's wrath once she returned. By that time, Tirith had figured out after all those months that he received payments from the court for each session he held; the attaché's office for the affairs of military personal was involved too, no doubt siphoning off a small portion of Tirith's eventual pension. Not that she cared anymore; it was all out of her control and the control of all the other people she gossiped with at Doctor Finklesnap's waiting room. If she couldn't do anything about it, then she could at least try to game the system. If Finklesnap was profiting from their sessions, then he couldn't go overboard when she skipped a single time; he'd need to retain her as a captive patient for many more months to receive full payment. Though he could likely cause minor difficulties for her, he couldn't afford to lose her entirely.

The clock rang; had it been three minutes already?

Upstairs, she could hear most of her colleagues shuffling off to lunch. She'd need to join them in order to keep up appearances. What she was about to do in and of itself wasn't technically illegal, as long as she kept the details to herself. Still, lose lips sank ships; and in her case, she would quite literally be on a ship just after high noon.

Not even bidding farewell to the lonely records section, Tirith walked up the stone steps to find several of her colleagues just walking out the door, including a particular silver haired women whose nostril wheezed every time she breathed. Thank the goddes that _that_ woman had already found another group to dine with. Soraya and Pontus were waiting in the lobby of the cramped, uncozy consulate and intercepted her as soon as she approached.

"Seafood?" the younger woman asked her, already assuming that her older and more conservative roommate would feel comfortable having lunch alongside Pontus, whom she still had never gotten to know that well.

"Seafood," Tirith replied, acquiescing if it meant keeping all appearances as normal. Even Soraya didn't know about the packed bags back at their shared apartment.

As was typical, the streets of Stormwind were packed at the eleventh hour in the morning, when the majority of the city's middle class and skilled workers took a break. Though most of the population still consisted of peasantry, the overpopulated metropolis still sported quite a few members of the educated class, and restaurants around that time were packed with people eager to be seated, order their food and return to their jobs on time. Being a part time employee at the consulate, Tirith never had to worry about such matters, but her two lunchtime companions for the day did - and they fretted about it the entire way toward the smelly seafood restaurant the younger two elves had earmarked since the morning.

Such restaurants tended not to offer open choices on the menu due to the sheer volume of customers they had to serve. Dishes were prepared and cooked at random, and people at the front of the line pointed at what struck their fancy. One had to act fast lest all the selections be snapped up, and by the time it was their turn the closest thing Tirith could grab was a plate of two steamed oysters, half of a split lobster and what appeared to be dried seaweed. All the tables had been occupied as well, and so the three colleagues found themselves talking, eating and standing at the same time like the outlanders tended to do. Tirith felt completely out of her element, behaving in ways considered unacceptable in their traditions but finding herself with little recourse since her two colleagues needed to return to work promptly. Concepts such as lunch breaks and weekends were still luxuries for the few, unknown to the many, and considered a privilege rather than a right.

Soraya blew on a tiny, almost paper thin filet of fish she'd received, breaking another elven rule of propriety in public due to time constraints. "I swear they must be magically altering this food. I can't believe that I get full from eating so little."

Pontus, on the other hand, seemed rather satisfied with what appeared to be a bell pepper stuffed with crabmeat he received. The odor was bizarre but it was, technically, the healthiest of the three dishes since it had been baked. "Actually, I heard that's what they really do. I heard they have this mage in the back, some little gnomish fellow, who casts some reverse conjuring spell to make people get full faster so they think the prices are worth the meal."

"You mean the meal is worth the price?" Soraya asked just before she stuffed a bunch of fish in her mouth.

"Yes, that's what I meant to say."

Maybe overcompensating a bit in her attempts to project an image of business as normal, Tirith attempted to engage in the act known as small talk that she found so boring most of the time. "Does seaweed have any nutritional value? I feel like they just threw it on the plate as filler." She rolled it all up with the cheap wooden spoon she'd been given and at it all in one bite, the bland taste reminding her of sentinel style food while on the decade long patrols during the Long Vigil.

Pontus stopped short before taking another bite of his own food to answer. "Actually, it does have nutritional value. It tastes like salty grass but it's healthy food." Slicing off a piece of the only food item on his plate, he smiled without making eye contact, probably some residual shyness due to his class having been almost all male and gender segregated until recently. "I would have traded you some of my pepper just for variety if there was some of the seaweed left."

"Hey, give me an oyster for some of my fish," Soraya mock demanded, already slapping one of her paper thin filets on Tirith's plate. Seeing little recourse, Tirith slid an oyster across their plates, feeling a twinge of embarrassment when her finger slipped and the shell almost tumbled to the ground. "You must really want to get rid of that oyster."

"Yeah, more like I really want some of these filets," Tirith joked right back, attempting to mask the fumble.

The three of them mostly ate in silence for the sake of saving time. The walk back to the consulate was a long one, and unfortunately much of their lunch break was spent in transit. By the end of the meal, Tirith couldn't even remember what they'd spoken about, and she found herself feeling air headed as they returned their plates and cutlery to the restaurant staff. Even more educated workers poured out into the streets looking for places to eat at, and the three night elves beat a hasty retreat toward the consulate.

More than halfway there, they came to a fork in the road where they'd have to part ways. One direction led back to the consulate; the other led toward Tirith and Soraya's apartment. The two full time employees stopped to face her before bidding farewell.

"Don't go too crazy back there, alright?" Soraya told her with a wry smile, intending an altogether good natured joke.

It certainly didn't feel that way, however. A combination of feelings - mostly negativity - swelled inside of Tirith's chest, and she had to force herself to smile and pretend that it wasn't embarrassing for her to walk home after half a work day at her pointless job while the two of them returned to actually _do_ things. "I'll try not to, but I'm not making any promises," she replied, keeping her tone flat so as to mask her apprehension.

"It was nice seeing you again, Tirith," Pontus said while standing a little further away from the two women, droves of shorter beings passing around him.

"Of course, you too."

"It's your turn to wash the dishes, by the way!"

Tirith smiled legitimately this time, refraining from reminding Soraya that she didn't have room to talk. "I already handled it this morning. I'm a bit tired and I'm sure my sleep schedule will be messed up, so I just went ahead and finished all of it."

"Good girl!" Soraya chortled as the two of them waved to her as they parted ways.

Showing no jealousy at all, Soraya and Pontus returned to work while Tirith simply left after lunch as was her habit. That lack of any jealousy at all stung; another reminder of Tirith's feeling that her position was just a pity job arranged for her by Soraya so the younger elf. As Tirith shoved her hands in her pockets and strolled away, the thoughts continued to plague her. There was no denying that Soraya bore good intentions, but the result was that Tirith was reduced to playing the role of a burden existing only to be taken care of; for a warrior of the night who defended the balance for millennia, to say it wasn't befitting her was the understatement of the eon.

Despite her impending departure, she took her time on her walk back to the apartment. Living with Soraya had provided just enough companionship to sate her needs, and Tirith found herself more easily accepting the fact that outside of their chats before sleeping in the evenings - by the goddess, they were night elves sleeping _at night_ \- she was generally alone most of the time. All the more time to sort out her thoughts, her life, and her plans in however much time she had left. No night elf had yet died of old age, but they all knew it was coming; a few that were even older than Tirith had even begun to degenerate physically, a phenomenon their people couldn't even remember. Maybe that inevitability looming over her head was what spurred her toward her decision.

Truly, she did feel bad about hiding her plan from Soraya. As Tirith passed some other night elves sitting about the grass in their neighborhood, she wondered how the younger elf would react upon the realization that she'd gone. Tirith had already written a note explaining that everything was alright and that she'd return within two weeks, but that she couldn't take an official vacation since her weekly anger management sessions prevented her from traveling beyond Ellwyn. Based on what she knew, it would be a few days before her roommate even realized that she had left; Tirith knew because she'd been running a few...tests.

All of them were periodic. Over the past two months, she'd practiced walking to work separately on some mornings just so her roommate would gradually grow used to the idea. By waking up either earlier or later, she ensured that Soraya would expect them to not see each other until lunch breaks sometimes. On other days, Tirith went to lunch with new people, enduring agonizing conversations with people she didn't care about in order to get her roommate used to the idea of them occasionally dining apart; it worked resoundingly well, since Soraya had been encouraging her to reach out and expand her social circle anyway. Once such behavior had become normal, Tirith started to take odd breaks at work instead of meeting the others in the alleyway, began to sleep more and earlier at random times, made a friend or two in the next apartment complex over and even skipped work a few times just to confirm that, indeed, nobody noticed if the pity hire didn't show up to work. She even did it two days in a row once, marveling when Soraya even mistakenly thought that they had passed by each other when walking in different groups to lunch. Methodical and perhaps a bit sneaky, yes, but Tirith wanted her absence to be as painless and unsurprising as possible; if Soraya even failed to figure out when exactly Tirith had left, then even better; they slept in different rooms and the note that Tirith had left wasn't dated.

Once inside the building, Tirith put her old tracking skills to use and waiting beneath the stairs until she was sure nobody else was walking the halls. Leaping up to the fourth floor, she bounded down the hall and closed the door behind her silently despite her incredible size in relation to the narrow, human sized hallways, and set to her final preparations.

Inside her room, her bags were already packed and her leather travel gear had been carefully laid out. Stuffing her work clothes beneath the covers like the rough outline of a body, she quickly changed and slung the bag over her shoulder before drowning her outfit. Lifting the sinew necklace from the pantry door in the kitchen, she tucked the rather long Zandalari troll tusks into the cowl of her cloak spilling over her back, intending to conceal the memento until she finally reached Stranglethorn Vale.

Everything seemed as if it would go according to plan. Thus, she found herself wholly unprepared for the surprise visit from the tiny little man she least wanted to see.

"Miss Nightshade, open up," blared the grating, irritating voice of Doctor Finklesnap just outside her door. Judging by the fact that she hadn't even heard them entering the building, she assumed that he and the two human guards she could hear breathing had lied in wait and approached the door when she was changing in her bedroom. "Miss Nightshade, we're here to inform you of an emergency schedule change in next week's sessions for all patients."

"Son of a bitch," she muttered in Darnassian while removing her cloak, travel back and shoes and tossing them out of view. What sort of trick of chance was this?

Opening the door, she found the expected two armored humans waiting for her outside, both of them looking impatient and unhappy - though not with her - as they stood just out of view to each side. She almost didn't notice the gnomish psychiatrist himself, who stood straight in front of her but just out of view. Already, he looked displeased when she hadn't even spoken directly to him yet.

Fiddling with a stupid looking clipboard, Finklesnap let his gaze fall to the object and only gave her a cursory condescending glance as he tried to make himself seem too busy to behave politely to one of his patients. "Miss Nightshade, I'm here to inform you that all sessions next week are to be delayed by eighteen hours due to a schedule shift, which would place your appointment during your working hours again. I'm here to remind you to plan accordingly."

"Thank you, doctor," she replied rather curtly, doing her best to merely comply and get the interaction over with as soon as possible; she had a ship to catch at the harbor.

"As a part of our ongoing efforts to streamline the city's healthcare system, I'll have to ask that you sign this acknowledgment form - which is why we needed to come her personally."

"Of course." The night elf promptly bent over and signed the form on the clipboard, even recapping the pen for him afterward.

For a second, he just stared at her and she began to fear that he suspected her of funny business. He would technically be correct in assuming that was the case, and when he tilted his head up and raised an eyebrow at her, she realized that he'd found yet another mistake on her part to latch on to.

Her true fears were alleviated, however, once it became clear that it was just more of Finklesnap looking for more imaginary problems rather than actually comprehending what she was planning or thinking.

"Miss Nightshade, have you been taking your medication?"

"Yes," she lied through her teeth. "Two pills, twice a day before food."

Unconvinced, he began to quite literally fish for problems, never seeming to grow tired of arguments. "I'm going to go ahead and write you another prescription. You're far too uppity and you're displaying symptoms of mania." He promptly began scribbling on his clipboard, shoving a new set of doctor's signatures in her direction. "Switch to these, but take the same dosage as before."

She reached to accept the prescription from him, forgetting how conniving the little gnome was. "Thank you, doctor-"

"Whoa! Tirith! My hand!" He looked to the confused human guards next to him for support. "Did you both just see that? She tried to scratch my hand!"

Fighting the urge to grit her teeth, she forced herself to speak as clearly as possible. "I didn't come near your-"

"Tirith calm down! Please remain inside your apartment because I am inside of a hallway and I feel vulnerable!"

Even one of the guards appeared irked by the doctor's behavior, and Tirith had no patience for the little man's games - not when she was set to sail in less than two hours. Swallowing her pride easily if she could find a way to screw Finklesnap at least temporarily, Tirith resorted to a tactic that would only work in a patriarchal society like the human capitol: playing the damsel in distress.

"No I will _not_ have dinner with you, doctor! I'm a patient and you're making me feel pressured!" Tirith basically shouted into the hallway, easily drowning out the gnome's voice and even shocking the two guards with her higher than usual pitch. Finklesnap looked absolutely stunned and the guards became visibly nervous, but she stopped the gnome by continuing her tirade when he tried to intervene. "Don't touch my hand, I did not give you permission to touch my body!"

Already, Tirith could hear the sound of her neighbors stirring, and felt very thankful that she'd taken the time to socialize a bit while she was preparing to leave unannounced. Harper, a human rifleman directly across the hall, was the first to open his door, wearing nothing but a bath towel and an unnecessary hairnet as stared down even the guards.

"Sentinel, are these guys bothering you?" Harper said, his eyes darting from the guards to Tirith's chest and back to the guards again.

Finklesnap soon found himself faced with a pale skinned dwarf the next door over. The broad shouldered man was holding an aged kitchen mallet covered in chicken fat and looked grumpy. "Who's bothrin me naybahs?" the man who seemed to barely speak Common asked in an accent that was nearly indecipherable.

More commotion rang out from the rooms as the shouting from not only Tirith but at least two other residents plus the furious yet timid squeaks of Finklesnap caused more people in the hallways to peek out their doors and join the fray. Satisfied that she'd likely scared both the psychiatrist and even the two official Stormwind sentries and had already signed the necessary documents, Tirith promptly closed the door to the apartment and put all her travel gear back on. Harper in particular sounded rather irate; the human had never openly flirted with her before, but he had a tendency to leer like almost all males of his kind and only became angrier every time the gnome tried to explain his own side of the story. Inside Soraya's bedroom, Tirith opened the window and climbed outside, clinging to the water spouts and storm drains on the side of the apartment complex as she closed the window with her free hand. She might be ageing, but sliding down the successive windows as she traveled four stories down to the empty sidewalk next to a canal was still a rather easy task for the ancient warrior.

Once down onto the street, she pulled the cowl over her head and walked the long way toward the harbor, taking every precaution so as to avoid even passing by anyone who might know her or know the people who know her. Snickering to herself like an immature, youngblood, she couldn't help but congratulate herself in how she could still mediate complex situations even when out of her element and in an unfamiliar environment.

Finklesnap had received her signature, but had also received a rather rough shock when she not only turned the tables on him but also ensured that her entire apartment building would have a problem with the short little man. When she didn't show up to the next scheduled counseling session, he'd likely assume that she was just behaving that way to spite him, and wouldn't likely have the time nor the bravery to approach her apartment again for a few weeks. By that time she would be back in Stormwind anyway, and even Soraya probably wouldn't tell anyone once the younger elf found the note Tirith had left; the two were discreet and trusted each other, and a part of Tirith expected Soraya to even be proud of her for traveling so far out of her comfort zone.

It only took a few minutes for Tirith to arrive at the busy harbor. She'd scouted the area on afternoons in the past week, checking out the table of voyage schedules and dock locations such that she didn't need to stop and speak to a single person on the way to the ship of choice. She'd even delayed her trip by a week in order to avoid sailing directly into Booty Bay, which would have been too obvious a destination and would have run the risk of the drove of Alliance informants hanging out there that a discharged soldier on psychiatric probation had shown up in the world's most notorious pirate cove. Instead, she'd booked a ticket to a smaller, industrial port frequented only by laborers, oil riggers and dockhands that was run jointly by gnomes of the Alliance and goblins of both the Steamwheedle Cartel and, it was rumored, the Horde, though that was officially denied by the authorities in charge or procuring oil for the faction's military industrial complex.

At the dock in question, a single uniformed officer and an armored guard were selling tickets; such cargo routes carried virtually no passengers other than work personnel, and there were always extra hammocks available. Plus, not needing to buy a ticket ahead of time meant less of a chance of anyone associated with her overworked parole officer noticing.

The uniformed officer at the dock accepted Tirith's identification papers once she'd reached the front of the short line, inspecting them for a moment until a seagull sailing over the Stormwind harbor nearly pooped on his head.

"Ma'am...according to this notification on your ID - ack! Damn birds - you're not allowed to leave the Eastern Kingdoms until next year."

"I understand, officer. I'm only going for a surprise visit to an old friend at the port in northern Stranglethorn - I won't leave the region and I won't stay long, either." Telling lies had become so easy both practically and psychologically that Tirith worried a bit, but that worry couldn't override her elation when the officer simply handed her papers back to her.

"Have a safe trip, ma'am."

"You too...oh wait, I mean, thanks," Tirith stuttered, committing the same mistake more than half of all people did but eliciting nothing but a polite chuckle from the two human males.

Soon enough, Tirith had staked out a hammock for her own in a room set aside for the three female workers in the ship, paid a gnomish cabin boy to watch her stuff, and hidden among the cargo until the ship had set sail. Only when she felt the boat move entirely away from the docks did she feel confident enough to show her face above the deck, moving toward the back and watching Stormwind turn into a small spec over the horizon. The cargo ship hugged the coast but moved rather slow, and she figured that it would be nearly a week despite the relatively short distance of the journey.

She leaned her elbows on the stern of the ship as she looked back. It couldn't have been later than the late afternoon, but Tirith could faintly see the outline of both of Azeroth's moons and tried her best to find the stars as well, remembering an old saying a dear friend had told her a while ago.

"Goodbye Stormwind, and good riddance for the next two weeks...I have prayers and amends to the fallen to make."


	23. June 14 to 17, year 25

_June 14-17, year 25_

Jaquilina scooted a little closer toward Tirith in her cramped tent, attempting to avoid leaning against the outer canvas since the tents of her colleagues were placed so closely. The two of them sipped on coffee as they became reacquainted with one another. "So from what you tell me, then, it's been just shy of two weeks since you left and you're only just now rested up and ready to leave here," the dark skinned human remarked while testing the coffee's rapidly dropping temperature.

Hunched over and sitting cross legged, Tirith found it a bit more difficult to avoid resting against the outer canvas due to her size. Jaquilina's tent was designed for a single human inhabitant, like all the other tents for the workers that formed a part of Nesingwary's collective out there in the rainforest. The rows of tents were narrow and you could hear just about anyone else snore.

All things considered, though, it was a comfortable setup. That the human weaponsmith had been more than ready to let Tirith sleep inside the tent for all the daylight hours in the tent after many long days of travel from the industrial port made the elf less inclined to criticize.

"Yes, a total of twelve days, just about," Tirith replied while drinking her own coffee. Her body wasn't used to caffeine, and almost immediately she began to feel its effects. "By the night, this is powerful stuff."

"They grow fields and fields of this stuff in southern Westfall, and then ship it down here. Just take it easy - you don't want to be awake for days on end." Despite the human's much smaller size, Jaquilina actually held a larger cup than Tirith, her body bearing a higher tolerance for the stuff. "But anyway...uh, yeah. By now, your roommate surely must have noticed your absence. And that stupid doctor will likely take notice once your second missed appointment comes up in...how many days?"

"Just two days from now."

"So in two days, he might start to wonder as well. I really have to hand it to you..." Jaquilina smiled, and the light of the first campfires of the early evening flickered in through the slightly opened tent flap. Though Jaquilina's hair was straight and elf like, her skin was of a similar attractive color to Khadijah's, which itself was of a similar color to the coffee. The light danced off of it in a way that made Tirith want to reach out and feel it for some reason. As if noticing the odd look she was receiving, the human smiled. "...you really have kicked up some trouble. I'm proud of you; I had always assumed you to be the straight laced, by the book type of gal."

This time, Tirith grinned wide, humbled by indirect compliment. "This is honestly the most daring thing I've done in a while...my people live a long time, and during that long time I lived across the ocean, I never committed an act of insubordination. Not once. I almost didn't think I'd be able to get on the boat."

"Well, you did, and you're here now. That's what matters." Finishing her cooled off coffee in a single gulp, Jaquilina elicited a jovial laugh from her less caffeine tolerant friend, and even burped a little bit, causing Tirith to become downright giddy at the impropriety. "Excuse me. But anyway...look, I heard rumors about what happened, but I spoke to people who spoke to Khadijah after she spoke to you. I won't delve into your private business, but are you sure you're ready to go on some sort of pilgrimage back to where it all happened? Emotionally, I mean?"

Sipping more coffee slowly, Tirith admitted to herself for the first time that the question was at least a valid one. Such an admission she been forcibly repressed, like so much else swirling around inside her, but the human weaponsmith's tent was one of the few places in the Eastern Kingdoms where Tirith was close to feeling comfortable enough to talk.

"I think it's time. It's been almost a year...just two weeks shy, or so. Very close to an entire year. I don't see any reason to wait beyond this."

"And you're absolutely sure that you want to go by yourself?" Concern laced Jaquilina's voice as she asked. "I'll go with you if you but ask me."

"I'm sure...I prefer it, to be honest. Though once I'm all done, I do hope that I'll be able to drop by again."

"Yes, are you serious? That lonely tent flap is always open for my friends. In fact, please do stop by afterward. I know you're fine going back to...where it all happened, but I'd prefer to know you found your way alright as soon as possible. If you wait until you return all the way to Stormwind and then write, it will take weeks for me to actually hear from you."

"Don't worry about me! I'm definitely stopping back here afterward, but seriously, don't worry about me. I just need to retrace my footsteps...pray for the fallen. Something we've all done." Rushing to finish her coffee once she could hear the other inhabitants of the camp leaving their daytime work posts, Tirith nearly spilled the stuff when she noticed how closely the human was watching her. "You never asked me about what happened, by the way."

"Believe me, I've wanted to, but I don't want to pry. You only need to say what you're comfortable with saying."

"Well, what have you heard?"

Sighing deeply, Jaqulina's eyes betrayed a sense of resigned disappointment. "The usual. Official sources and even most of the people claim that the Alliance valiantly rescued hostages from an encampment of corrupted savages. People often tend to just repeat the propaganda and move on with their lives, even many of the members of the Horde we get around here. But there are a few people..." Jaqulina pulled the tent flap shut surreptitiously and scooted as close to the big elf as the cramped tent would allow. "...there are a few people who were there. A few of the perpetrators, actually, who whined about what they did when they got drunk enough. People quickly shouted them down or changed the subject, but I know enough of what goes on in the world to know that such things are possible. They speak of a village of families and kids that got bombed...they didn't have the chance to elaborate, but when I got word that Marge was laughing about you supposedly having a psychotic break, I knew which side I would believe."

Warmed by a person who mattered knowing and believing the truth, Tirith somehow found a way to smile even despite the violent memories. "Then there's nothing more I need to add," the elf hummed to herself while drinking the last sip of her coffee. "Perhaps it is but frivolity, but I still think about what happened, at times. And I always remember that since their entire town was wiped out, there is nobody to pray for them. Even if they were vicious, even if they were primitive, they were still living beings; they were people. They were _not_ beasts. I owe them that much."

Jaquilina's expression was a curious one to Tirith. It seemed as if the human didn't quite understand yet perfectly understood at the same time, and Tirith could tell again that her friend wanted to go along with her for the trip. "I hope that you find whatever it is that you're looking for, Tirith," the human said while putting both of their cups at the far end of the tent. "But we still have the matter of the location to work out."

"Of course. I was unconscious when I was taken there, and unconscious when I was taken back out of the place. The location is unknown to me."

"Which is a big part of why I wish you'd take me along, but I won't push." Ironically it did feel like Jaquilina was pushing, which the elf found both endearing and irritating at the same time; an easily forgivable offense. Pulling out a sheet of paper, Jaquilina began to scribble all over the sheet. "I've never been there, but for those of us who basically live in this camp permanently, it's very, very well known; the few who have passed by there claim that this place, this..."

"Xlatl."

"Right, that Hulatel is haunted. So I've heard it described and seen other people's maps more than once. Here, watch this." In a matter of seconds, Jaquilina had drawn a surprisingly accurate terrain map of the area, talking as she drew. "It's of equal distance to here as Camp Freedom is, but in a totally different direction. So on your own, you should be able to reach the rough area in less than half a day. And I know you prefer going at night, so this is a great time for you."

Once the map was finished, the two of them sat together for a moment, listening to the clinking of mugs and silverware as the traveler's began to settle down among the rented hostel tents and the residents began to prepare and purchase their evening meals. Scant little conversation was needed once they'd reviewed the exact route that Tirith was to take, and the two of them shared a quiet moment before moving to leave.

"Listen, Tirith...before we eat and you head out, I need to give you something." Behind her, Jaquilina had hidden a weapon case that she'd obviously prepared well in advance of the meeting - the night elf had paid the case in the tent no mind before, but she did notice that it had been there since before she'd even arrived at Nesingwary's camp. The case opened with a click and Jaquilina produced a finely tempered steel sword, bearing a straight double edge as was common in that part of the world. "It's dangerous to go alone, take this."

Accepting the gift with both hands, Tirith sincerely did admire the handiwork. It wasn't like the sort of craftswomanship she was used to, but it was far better than anything to be found in the armory at Camp Freedom. "You honor me far too much, Sentinel Dramet," Tirith joked while tapping her nails against the surprisingly well written elven runes on the sheath of the sword. "I don't even know what to say."

"Don't say anything, Sentinel Nightshade. Just come back in one piece, and that's thanks enough."

The two women joked a little while longer before sealing their belongings up in the tent to buy themselves dinner. While Jaquilina's day was coming to an end, Tirith's night was just beginning. Their last meal together was shared with a few other locals, including Jaquilina's tauren assistant who spoke surprisingly good Darnassian, and the bustling camp provided a surprinsgly relaxing environment as Tirith prepared to bid farewell to other living people for a short period. And as Tirith stored all but the bare minimum of her belongings with Jaquilina and stood at the edge of the camp, she felt an odd combination of feelings. As much as she did enjoy the friends she'd made in the Eastern Kingdoms, she found it surprisingly easy to say goodbye, hefting her new sword and her essential travel gear as she disappeared off into the night, perfectly comfortable in the dark of a forest under the sky, using only the stars as navigation for her rough sense of direction.

There was no longer a sense of urgency. Although Tirith had taken longer than she'd expected to reach Nesingwary's camp, she would already be late upon returning to Stormwind anyway. Since there was no way to avoid that, she figured that she might as well relax on the way toward what would most assuredly be a triggering experience, and she didn't hurry as she navigated through the rainforest.

Wary of tigers and raptors at all times, Tirith followed the map to the letter, keeping one hand on the hilt of her sword. The terrain was easier than she remembered, though not wearing anything heavier than leather armor, the heavy infantrywoman felt unusually light on her feet. All along the way, she focused as much as she could on the rainforest around her. It was all she could to in order to avoid worrying too much about how she would react once faced with the ruins where the terrifying atrocity had occurred. By simply living in the moment and refusing to dwell on the past or fear for the future, Tirith actually felt a serenity that she hadn't remembered ever since she'd left Serenity.

That ability to live in the present was, essentially, what saved her. To mention that seconds turned into minutes would be an understatement; even to say that minutes turned into hours didn't quite feel strong enough a phrasing. Hours turned into days, and those days passed surprisingly quickly as Tirith navigated the difficult terrain. Only then did she realize why the Alliance had sent gyrocopters and even mortar teams that rode in gyrocopters during the assault on the Skullsplitter town: it was extremely fortified in the mountains, and was extremely difficult to reach. In terms of miles, it couldn't have been any further than Camp Freedom, as Jaquilina had mentioned. However, so steep was the climb that Tirith found herself resting multiple times during the journey. Soon enough, she realized that more than two days had passed, and she was still climbing the thick trunks of trees growing out of the sheer incline of the mountains beneath the canopy.

On a particular afternoon, Tirith found herself waking up even though the sun was still shining. Her body felt rested and so there wasn't anything particularly wrong with being awake so early, but as she sat in the nest of branches she'd fashioned high above the forest floor - she'd learned to sleep up high after her encounter with the tigers - she could sense a presence.

When she looked at the small body beneath her nest on the ground, Tirith felt perplexed. Not threatened by the two fish eyes staring up at her blankly; just perplexed.

Like most of its kind, the murloc was completely naked, mostly head and neck and carried only a pointy stick for self defense. For the longest time it just stared up at her, exchanging the perplexed look and exuding absolutely no air of hostility or aggression at all. All Tirith could do was stare back, trying to figure out what exactly it wanted.

Eventually, she grew tired of the silent exchange and checked her map. She wasn't far from the ruins of the town, but she still had what she expected to be a few hours of hiking before she reached the isolated mountain town; a short delay certainly wouldn't hurt, but she didn't need any distractions either. Waving at the murloc, she saw it quickly wave back to her, mimicking without understanding as the monkeys often did. When the small creature didn't seem afraid of her at all, Tirith descended to the forest floor; whether she needed to fight it or not, she would still need to descend and start walking again either way.

Holding her palms open to demonstrate her own lack of aggression, she approached the little fish person cautiously. "Hello...hello...keep calm, little one," she said to the unperturbed little being as she realized it would allow her to move close enough to reach out and touch it (not that she wanted to). "Friend?" she asked it, assuming that it could understand Low Common.

Gurgling something in its language, the murloc nodded its head, though she didn't know if the fish people understood that to mean confirmation or if they used it according to their own meanings. Big, unintelligent looking eyes fixated on her, as if the creature was waiting for something. While she'd killed plenty of murlocs in her day - they were in no short supply just about anywhere in Azeroth - Tirith had never actually engaged in conversation with any of them. The responsiveness of the small fish man to speech was immediate and sentient.

"Friend?" she asked it again, pointing to herself and then the murloc.

Though it didn't mimic that specific movement, it nodded its head and gurgled at her again, obviously trying to communicate on a very base level. On the face of an icthyoid being, expressions were difficult for Tirith to make out, but the way that the creature didn't blink at all, the way it tilted its head up even when she knelt down, the way that it let its arms lay aplomb at its sides all insinuated that it was just as fascinated by the interaction as she was.

After a few more moments of attempting to teach it individual words, she realized that the conversation was going nowhere. However interesting it was, the murloc would likely be content to stand there all day exchanging words and gurgles, and she was coming no closer toward her destination.

On a whim, Tirith decided it would be worth a try to see if the creature recognized a local word.

"Xlatl?" she asked the murloc, checking to see if it recognized the name of the Skullsplitter town.

Right away, the murloc's stupor faded and it suddenly appeared rather cogent. Fish lips curled back over slimy teeth, and a disgustingly foul odor brushed against her face.

"Xlatl," the murloc repeated to her, pronouncing the name perfectly and nodding its head again.

It shouldn't have meant anything; lower life forms often imitated behavior they didn't understand, but it felt like it was worth a try. Pursing her lips in anticipation, Tirith pointed at herself and spoke again. "Xlatl," she said methodically, overemphasizing the pronunciation.

Finally the murloc blinked as if it were thinking about the sound. It looked at her finger for a second and then back to her eyes, remaining still for a few moments. "Xlatl?" the murloc asked, turning up the pitch of its voice as if asking a question.

Tirith pointed at herself again. "Xlatl."

In what would always remain as one of the more bizarre episodes of her long life, the murloc nodded and reached a single slimy hand forward to touch hers. Though it retained its light grip on its pointy stick, it made no move to attack, and Tirith found herself hunching over as the small fish man tried to pull her. Driven and instinctual, the murloc began to lead her uphill, moving with even more ease than the night elf as they started to climb the forested mountainside from an angle she wouldn't have assumed easy on her own. Beneath the soft soil lied a series of long roots forming a sort of natural staircase beneath the undergrowth, providing a great set of footholds as the murloc led her at more than double the speed she'd carefully been climbing at earlier.

A murloc. Of all the creatures in the forest she could have sought aid from, the most helpful ended up being a murloc, perhaps the most universally detested race in the planet after silithids.

Before long, they had reached a relatively even plateau that still wasn't quite at the top of the mountain, and although Tirith had never seen the place previously, a voice inside her head told her that they'd arrived. The trees were thick and densely packed, and there were no road, but the feeling inside mixed with the occasional darkened branch immediately injected her with a strong dosage of painful nostalgia.

"Elune..." Tirith whispered out loud.

Just faintly, her lungs began to feel a bit constricted, the scent of burnt leaves teasing the deepest part of her sinuses. Whether it was a figment of her imagination or there actually was a small, localized forest fire, she would not consider even for a second; Tirith's chest tightened and she shoved those thoughts and feelings down, refusing to acknowledge that any of them were there. She had just approached her destination; it was too early to allow herself to be overwhelmed.

As if sensing the same unease, the murloc stopped walking and let go of Tirith's hand. When she looked down at the funny little being, it still didn't have a readable expression but there was an apprehension in its body language that made her understand that their very brief companionship had already come to an end.

A single nervous fish finger pointed toward the rest of the jungle ahead of them. "Xlatl," the murloc croaked, the closest hint to discomfort that was possible for the lower life form creeping in to its voice.

Looking in front of them, Tirith still didn't quite recognize the layout of the jungle, but the tightness in her chest felt all too familiar. Maybe it was better for her to have some privacy, and there was no difficulty in bidding farewell to her fishy friend. "Friend," she told the murloc while pointing to herself again.

Nodding once more, the murloc promptly turned around, ducked its head and dashed away, disappearing into the low underbrush and leaving her alone with her thoughts again.

No wind rustled in the trees, and similar to the way that smaller night elf villages such as Serenity had been protected before her race's opening to the world, there were no natural forest sounds; no birds or crickets chirped and no paw or hoof steps could be heard from any larger animals. The entire area was isolated, filling her with an even more ominous sense.

Forcing herself forward, Tirith followed the simple instructions of the murloc until the scent of burn leaves became even stronger. Aside from a few darkened branches, no actual fire damage could be seen and she fought with her utmost ability to ignore the scent and pretend that she didn't notice it. Anxiety had already begun to creep up on her even before she recognized the clearing where she'd first stood and watched the gyrocopters fly overhead, and by the time that she _did_ recognize that point, she'd already plunged in too deep to fight the current.

She could still remember the sound of the propellers in the sky, and the hissing of the gas tanks that fueled the flame throwers. Since Tirith was herself a creature of the forest, she immediately recognized empty patches of ground where there had once been trees that ended up burnt down; she also recognized which trees had healed but suffered residual fire damage, and which parts of the forest were new. Even after a year, a period of time that had felt like the blink of an eye to her back when she had still been immortal, significant changes had occurred. When the tragedy had taken place, half the rainforest in the area had been burned to a crisp. Debris littered the ground and a few of the trees had turned black. But when she looked around now, she found that fungus and vegetation and overtaken any debris that would have been strewn about, and side from some patches of bark that had been stripped, the trees that were still standing appeared to be intact.

But that didn't make her return any easier. For Tirith, it felt like the mass murder had taken place the day before.

Leaves crunched beneath her feet, causing the brave warrior to jump. Silently cursing herself for her cowardice, Tirith removed her hand from the hilt of her new sword. Not even insects dared to tread in that place; her fear was entirely unfounded. Creeping along further, she could almost her the clicks and clanks of the mortar teams setting up their devastating payloads, all lined up in front of a natural rocky bottleneck where tall wooden ramparts had once blocked the view. When Tirith saw the first sets of remains, she finally paused.

"Goddess..."

All varieties of trolls were weak to fire; they couldn't regenerate from it and were quickly consumed by it. Flesh had been melted before her very eyes, leaving the exact same piles of bones and flint spear tips that she stepped over. Grunts and growls from the powerful warriors who were simply outmatched technologically reached her ears, and she found herself holding still for a moment as another heart palpitation threatened to manifest itself. Her pulse raced and even when she closed her eyes, the images of what had been built just beyond the ramparts refused to leave her be.

Taking a deep breath, Tirith forced herself to enter the ruins of Xlatl, physically straining herself just to remain in control of her emotions. The muscles in the back of her neck and her lower back tensed up as hard as petrified wood as the screams of the civilians, some of them infant children, echoed around her. People had scattered once the warriors had been reduced to ash by spouts of napalm, fleeing in vain as rockets fired by the mortar teams spread the oil fueled flames over every inch of the a year, the ashes had disappeared, leaving in their wake only a few stone and flint trinkets and the bones of the fallen. Tirith cringed as she moved deeper into the ruins, feeling her head spin and her sense of balance leave her as she positively identified some of those bones as belonging to people who weren't old enough to walk yet when they had been murdered.

On the verge of tears merely from walking into the front section of the ruins, Tirith sought out an unblemished patch of dirt that had once been grass and knelt down, fighting off the constriction in her throat.

"Elune...forgive this wretch, but it's too much," Tirith gasped while facepalming and almost bowing her head down into the dirt. "I'm here...after the dreams, the memories, the nights spent awake in bed asking myself what more I could have done...I'm here. For the love of all that is still good and pure in the world, I am here."

For minutes Tirith remained in that position, fighting a losing battle to suppress the mental overload of returning to a scene that reminded her so much of the loss of Suramar. The elders, the children, the sick...even the valiant warriors. Yes, valiant; they had held her captive only to find a true killer, and then released her afterward. Even as she sat in a spot where she distinctly remembered a local glaring at her as she exited the town, Tirith felt any disconnection between herself and the tribespeople due to differences in race or culture melt away. These were people...innocent, if slightly savage, people. And as she stood in the middle of it, she could hear nothing but the screams and the crackle of burning wood, even her own racing heartbeat being drowned out by the cacophony of terror.

Forcing herself to open her eyes and gaze upon the mass of fungus ridden logs that were once the huts of the town's residents, Tirith found her gaze watery and unclear. Desperate, she looked toward the sky in search of the stars to light her path, only to remember that it was still daytime; there were no stars to be seen. Disoriented and lost, Tirith opened her heart to what she really felt, collapsing to both knees instead of just one as she begged for mercy from the haunting sounds.

"I've traveled so far...I planned everything so well. I could have gone on living, but I knew I had to come back here to say goodbye...to say sorry...to wish the best for the fallen in the next life," Tirith sniffed, her voice growing shrill in a way she wasn't used to hearing from herself. "But the sounds won't stop. Oh Elune, why haven't they stopped? _What have I done wrong_? I tried to save some of them, even if it only would have been one. I failed, but what else could I have done?

"I live my life in that blasted human city and I survive; I've learned to cope. I'm not haunted, but the memory never leaves me; no matter how hard I work to suppress it, it leaves me. And now, I came here, at risk to myself, to pray for the dead and yet they will not rest! And I can not rest! I know I must come here, _but now what? What comes next?_ _ **Show me what I have to do for these people, please!**_ "

Tirith's voice echoed nowhere as the screams continued. Faint, distant, but very much present, they refused to stop or let up, infecting her entire being with paranoia as she continuously flinched and looked around just to be sure they weren't really there. At no point during the past year had she experienced much other than survivor's guilt; Tirith had never hallucinated or experienced night terrors. So why was her attempt to make amends for what happened failing so miserably? Why did she feel even _worse_ once she came?

Defeated and feeling rather foolish for traveling there for the general, unspecified purpose of praying for the dead, she buried her face in both hands this time, her body trembling as she began to fear that she'd merely picked at a scab that hadn't really healed.

So much repressed emotion. So much stress on her heart, figurative and literall, from stuffing all her feelings deep down inside. Forever strained, forever bottled up, forever distant and alone even in the middle of a crowd of people, Tirith hugged herself upon the realization that she was even more alone in the world than this haunted, ruined town. Hopelessness wove its way in and out of her mind as she wondered what could possibly be done to truly make a difference for people who couldn't even be buried, her simple plan of visiting a ghost town and numbing a few prayers seeming even more stupid to her once she was finally there.

All that despair, and all that negativity, was swept up when the sympathetic vibrations began.

Heavy, plodding and methodical, they traveled from the ground up into Tirith's knees and then abdomen, shaking the soil around her as the spirits of the people made their intention to inform her known. Fear gripped her as she faltered, panicking at the sight of an apparition that had long since disappeared from the world as if walked toward her. All those millennia of martial experience became unusable as Tirith's rare admission of her feelings left her a nervous wreck, kicking and squirming in the dirt as she tried to crawl away from the ghost of a dead warrior. Painted black and white like a skeleton, it reached out for her, trying to touch her hand even as she babbled in gibberish and took a swipe at it, so heavy in her shoulders was the anxiety attacking and crushing her. This wasn't what she had wanted; this was absolute terror.

Backed against a fallen tree, Tirith had nowhere else to go and nothing to do but succumb to horror unbecoming of a fighter as the ghost knelt at her level, its intense eyes gazing into hers from behind the ghostly, skeletal war paint. Rather than a frosty cold like the Scourge, its touch felt warm as it reached for her hand. It patted her, tried to console her, as if a dead man she'd failed to save could possibly say anything to make things right. Tirith tried to push him away, even kicked him in his meaty thigh once, but to no avail as the itinerant spirit tried to calm her down.

That body heat, that unmistakeable body heat that no dead man could possess, burned a hole into her perception of reality, confusing her to the point of nausea as she felt the surprisingly soft grip of a big hand close around hers. The ghost tried to shush her, tried to make her feel better, but only perplexed her even more as she wondered how a hot bodied spirit could retain such a physical grip on her wrist. It was only when the spirit groaned when she kicked him in the leg again that her befuddled brain calmed down marginally more than her strained, stressed out heart.

She shook her head furiously, refusing to believe the tricks her mind must have been playing on her, but the ghost only shushed her again. Those two eyes...bright, intelligent eyes stared back at her, tearing her away from her horror and pulling her to the ground of reality even when all logic dictated that it was a damned lie. But the longer the hand stayed closed around hers, the less her head spun and the more that her sense perception returned to her. A big blue thing painted black and white knelt right next to her, waiting patiently as she stopped babbling and very consciously noticed how the screams of the murdered innocents gradually faded away into a nothingness all in her head.

With watery, glassy eyes, she looked straight at him, heat rising in her temples as the grounding in reality made his presence more, not less, difficult to accept. After what felt like hours of him just sitting there waiting on her, she tried to form a sentence that wasn't gibberish.

"I watched you die," was all she could gasp at her old friend.

Oacaxo stared blankly at her, the skull paint on his face partially obscuring his reaction. "Were it so easy," he replied, a tone of sad exhaustion in his very much alive voice.


	24. June 17, year 25

_June 17, year 25_

No ashes coated the ruins of Xlatl one year after the fact. No charred, burnt wood littered the ground, and there were no physical remains of the former residents to mark the place as one single mass grave. By all measures, it was simply a peaceful set of ruins of a once functional community that had been buried by time and the vegetation. Even the exact time when the lives of the inhabitants had come to an end was indiscernible; the place may as well have been as old as the other remnant sites of fallen empires from a time when the world was still whole.

But a certain elf knew better. And as she trembled in the dirt - not from fear, but from utter shock - she felt keenly aware of the atrocities committed just under a year ago. Vaguely in the back of her mind, the voices of the victims had called to her - never intrusive, never aggressive, never even forming a distraction, but they had always been there. To visit them one last time had been an act of kindness on her part, considering the fact that she was stoic enough to forcibly bury the memories had she wanted to; unlike her veritable captors in Stormwind, her memories couldn't supply court orders.

So why did the spirits share their agony with her when she came to visit them? Were they so pained by their unfair ends that they were unable to restrain their bitterness in their own realm?

Why did the ghost of a fallen warrior choose to materialize, reaching out to contact her with a corporeal form?

Why did its hand feel so hot?

Tirith's head throbbed as she examined the familiar facial features beneath the war paint; not from pain, but simply from sensory overload as she struggled to both recover from the intensity of the pain and damage inflicted up on the balance of nature in this place as well as the simple images flashing through her mind. Back in Stormwind, they were mild annoyances that popped up as she multitasked during her work day; back at the scene of the crime against mortality, the retracing of her footsteps had simply proven too much for her once emotionless heart to bear.

The ghost did not step forward. He knelt next to her, not entirely facing toward her and not edging closer so as to encroach upon her personal space. Those two relatively small, almost beady yet intelligent eyes hung under a thick, hairless brow that was furrowed in concern though not confusion. Tirith felt very exposed, her powerlessness to control her emotions on display before an apparition that appeared not the least bit perturbed by her nervous breakdown. And when the apparition just waited for her to calm down, neither pushing her to suck up her feelings again nor attempting to coddle or console her as if she were a child, her sense of embarrassment drove her to breathe deeply until she could at least kneel in a similar position, meeting the phantom from her past as an equal, and not as a lost pilgrim in distress.

Shaking her head, she found her brain conflicted over whether or not to accept the reality of the familiar brutish yet kind face staring at her. "You're not real," she told the phantom of her new old friend, though she still broke her culture's rules of propriety and allowed the phantom to continue holding her had, conceding to the calming effect of the physical contact with another being.

Dried and cracked clay and colored water crinkled as the barrel of a chest heaved under rumbling breaths, far too close to the respiration of a living creature to be fake. "You not believe that," Oacaxo replied in a familiar deep voice. His tone was deadpan, and although he had never displayed much in the way of open, visual elation to see her even in the past when they considered themselves friends, his entire demeanor was even more somber than usual as the two of them knelt in the dirt in the middle of his ethnically cleansed hometown.

After a few attempts at coordinating her lips to form coherent words again, Tirith spoke, accepting that the person she had least expected to survive the Alliance bombing of Xlatl had somehow managed to do so. The explanation, however, would obviously confound her.

"How?" she managed to ask.

"How what?"

"How...what?" Incredulous, Tirith repeated the words, shocked even more by his casual, of subdued, attitude at such a time. "Oacaxo...you killed yourself...I saw you!"

He snorted in denial and shook his head slightly. "I knew then, that I not die. Stomach wound. Very bad, but possible to survive." Pointing to his painted midsection, he showed Tirith the area where she had watched him disembowel himself in protest of the witch doctor's order to execute her. Even under the black and white war paint, she could see that his hide was unblemished and unscarred, bearing the normal leathery appearance of his people as if he had never been injured in the first place. "Very painful, big risk, but I not died," he repeated.

"But your...I saw your intestines...your insides were sliced up..."

"Tlazotzin put them back in for me. After my entrails put in, just need wait. Regeneration is easy if all thing is held in place. Huamac wrapped mummy sheets around my stomach when they leave me."

Blinking a few times, Tirith found her heart rate decreasing, much to her relief. She knew of regeneration from the dark trolls of Kalimdor, but had never actually seen it in action - that branch of the race as reclusive and even more superstitious than this branch. Any shyness she normally would have felt when staring at the bare midriff of a man melted away as she had to confirm, for her own peace of mind, that this really was Ocaxo, and that a troll really could regenerate from damage to his or her entrails.

That didn't answer her questions about the even bigger danger that had followed his mock suicide attempt.

"Tlazotzin and Huamac helped you? They disobeyed the order to dump you by the river?" Tirith asked, her nose still running and tickling her a bit.

"Already, other guards know to not hurt starchild when you were took; I warn them. Guards not liked Ixchel, so Tlazotzin and Huamac never intend to leave me alone. There is a river...over there." Oacaxo pointed to the opposite end of the ruins, beyond the piles of vine covered rubble that used to be the ziggurat. "No crockolisks at this height in mountains. Air too thin. By the river is just for garbage. So Tlazotzin and Huamac wrap my wound and pray to Loa for me not die. Then, they say goodbye - I canceled my place in the tribe."

Focusing in the conversation helped Tirith to keep herself grounded, and the presence of Oacaxo - who she was now sure was alive and not just a hallucination - calmed her. Not so much repressing the anxiety she'd just been experiencing as simply putting it aside temporarily, she tried to comprehend what she'd witnessed the year before. "You mean when you refused to kill me?"

"Yes. Ixchel was elder; she had right for order execution. But she make mistake in choice words; she claims you criminal, and she victim. In Skullsplitter law, victim family can forgive criminal. But Ixchel not listen, so...I got mad. Not first time she make me mad. And I not want kill you. So if I must lose tribe, but you get life, I chose you get life."

Rather than survivor's guilt, Tirith found a form of guilt that she couldn't quite label coursing through her veins. She'd been prepared to let Oacaxo execute her if it meant he, one of her few friends, could escape from a difficult choice. But he'd gone and turned the tables, doing the same proactively. "Oacaxo, why? Your tribe was all you knew. And..." Remembering that his tribe had been massacred and that they were in the middle of the town's empty ruins, she stopped herself before continuing. He obviously had his reasons, but when they'd just reunited after all that had happened, the time felt inopportune. "After that...they left you by the river. But Oacaxo...you know what happened, right? Why Xlatl looks like this?" She motioned to the destruction around them. If he'd survived, then surely he musnt have been anywhere nearby - nothing could survive the bombing from so many dwarven flying machines.

For a split second, she recognized the furrow of sadness twitching in his features, but it disappeared quickly. "I watched. The river is far, because of garbage smell, but I saw the metal birds shooting fire. I watched the tribe, every last person, when they were burned."

"I'm sorry...I'm so sorry."

"Stop. Not a thing to do; I was not Skullsplitter anymore. After disobedience, I have no tribe. Even if I was not wound, I not help save the people; that is against the law. And the people not accept my help against the law, even if they hate the law."

"That's wrong," she said resentfully.

"That's life. Skullsplitter life. Not change, not for me, not for all body. And so, I watched my world on fire. For two days I sleeped in one spot, because all thing hurt except breathe and sleep. Maybe drank some water. And just watched black trees burn, and more pieces of our ziggurat fall down. Some Skullsplitter from Zul'mamwe visit after one week to look for survivors, but I hid; if all people die except for me, then the other people know I am cursed. Never accept me forever. And now...I have this," he said quietly while sweeping his arms to indicate the mostly vegetation covered ruins all around them. "This is my world. I not able to move to new town. I not have any tribe. All I able is to live, and dig for more bones every day. Give proper burials when I able." When he paused, she opened her mouth to apologize again but he caught her. "Not say me sorry, you. Past is past."

Unable to think of what else to say even once she'd calmed down and her head had stopped spinning, Tirith just shook her head. "I'm glad that you're alive, then. I'm so sad for the others...but I'm glad that you survived."

Beneath the war paint, his expression became unreadable again. She didn't know if he also felt sad and didn't wish to discuss the matter, or if he bore resentment toward the tribe for their stupid rules. Either way, he gave no indication and changed the subject. "I am glad you alive, too. I not want my only friend to died. But, Tirith Nightshade...why you come here? After very big time, why you go so far from Alliance villages?"

Clearing her throat, she tried to find words that didn't sound illogical. "I tried to stop what happened. I tried to fight them, but there were too many of them. So they sent me away, and told me I'm crazy. And for the past year, I've tried to live a normal life, but I can't forget what happened. I can't forget that there are people here, all of them dead." She paused to look at him for a moment, awkward in reaction to his stare; she remembered how the whole tribe, even Tlazotzin, tended to stare directly in the eyes of whoever they spoke to, entirely comfortable with eye contact that would be considered aggressive in other cultures. "Except for you, but I didn't know that. I believed there were victims of murder here who had nobody to pray for them. And where I come from, to leave the deceased without burial and without prayer is a sin upon whoever is able to do so, but chooses not to. I guess that I came here to do exactly what you also do: giving proper burials."

Although his expression didn't appear to change much through the skull pattern painted on his face, she could tell from the sound of his voice that he was touched. "Thank you...so much. They are not my tribe anymore, but they were my world." Suddenly, he leaned away from her and ducked his head down. It was almost as if the big guy looked a bit sheepish. "I not finished finding all bones, or burying all people. I like help, but help is not obligation. If you choose to help, you give big honor for Xlatl. But if you choose to pray and leave now, then I not feel mad-"

"I'm staying," she said quickly, cutting him off. The decision didn't even require a second thought on her part. "I've been gone from my new city for two weeks, and very soon I must return. But I will delay it as long as I can, even if I get in a bit of trouble when I return. It's the least I can do."

"Thank you, Tirith Nightshade," he told her before moving to rise.

Realizing that her hand was still in his, she let go rather quickly; now that she'd overcome her initial panic attack, her normal sense of propriety had returned, and she felt embarrassed at having needed a younger being to literally hold her hand to calm her down as if she were some child. However, she felt thankful right after when, true to his familiar behavior, he stood up and began to walk somewhere else without offering to help her stand or even waiting for her. The lack of fussing over her was freeing, and allowed her to preserve her dignity as a warrior of the night - even a retired one. All the same, she was confused as to where he was going and what she should do next, and caught up to him as he walked through the ruins.

"So...you search for the bones of the fallen, then?" she asked while catching up with him, following him toward what appeared to be a relatively new structure he'd raised himself in the form of an enclosed pen fenced off by bound logs.

Slowing down his heavy footsteps unnecessarily, he grunted in affirmation. "Bones must match. Not exact, but I match by age and size; no child bones and adult bones together. Spaced out, and under death charms." They reached the pen, and he stretched to his full height to lean his elbows on the edge. "Like this," he said while pointing inside.

She was just barely tall enough to peek over the edge of the high pen - he'd built a crude swinging door, but it was shut - and she could see that the large space was a makeshift graveyard. Over each plot was a carved tribal fetish consisting of animal bones, carved rocks and bound sticks, though they weren't as ornate as they would have been had a proper witch doctor prepared them. Oacaxo was obviously not one of the formally educated members of the tribe despite his natural intelligence, and the cemetery looked rudimentary even by the standards of such a technologically backward people.

"Elune bless you all, those who left before us," Tirith whispered in prayer to those whose burials had already been completed. Oacaxo's ears twitched, but otherwise he didn't acknowledge what she'd said, as if enraptured by the sight of the graves he'd dug. "It's been a whole year...how much work is left to be done?"

For a few seconds he seemed not to realize that she was speaking to him. Just as she was about to ask again he removed his elbows from the top of the cemetery fence and turned away, looking through the regrown vegetation back toward the ruins proper. "Months, maybe. I not work fast. Dig carefully, collect bones exactly, match personal items to bones. Still more work, out here. Come," he told her, walking on his own once again and leaving her to catch up. He didn't mince words or delay once she'd offered to help, and soon enough she found them in what she recognized as the center of the town. "There, in the back of town, one cluster of huts I not dig yet. There, another one." He pointed to two piles of darkened, mushroom covered wood debris that were slowly being claimed by all the vines. "Need to dig there. And then longhouse for elder meetings; behind here," he said while motioning toward the pile of broken, exploded stone that was once the town ziggurat. "And then, after that, finished."

There was no ominous sort of tone to his voice, but his words stuck in Tirith's mind. "And then what?" she asked.

Without a hint of sadness or regret, he looked at her and answered honestly. "Nothing. I live here alone because no tribe, and wait to die."

"You won't be able to go to another Skullsplitter town?"

"They know I am from Xlatl; and so I am cursed. I not allowed to enter."

"Can you join another tribe?"

At that, he chuckled a bit. "Never. Only the weak Darkspear allowed some people to join from outside, but that was before my born. Not allowed now that they join Horde. Darkspear, Gurubashi, all tribes...we hate each other even more than we hate foreigners. Not possible."

"What about Nesingwary's camp? They know you there and it's a neutral place. Once you're finished burying the dead here, you could always go there."

In a role reversal that Tirith would always remember as one of the stupider moments in her life, Oacaxo turned to face her and gave her a patient look of somebody who almost didn't believe what they'd just heard. "And what I do at Nesingwary's camp?" he asked politely but rhetorically. "Beg for food? Beg for jobs from Alliance and Horde people who hate me because of tribe which not even mine anymore?"

Floored, Tirith looked up at him, surprised that she'd just asked the question. Every person in her life had asked her the same question over the past year and a half: where would she go after retirement? Did she have anywhere to stay? Did she need help? Every time she'd been asked those questions, she'd found them annoying to no end and had almost resented those close to her for asking. When looking at the issue from the other side of the proverbial fence, however, she understood why people asked her such questions; it seemed so natural when worrying about the ultimate fate of someone she considered a friend.

In fact, the similarities of their situations was astounding, she realized as she sought a response to his rhetorical question. Hanging around Nesingwary's camp as a vagrant seeking work was a maybe for him. Living at the homes of Soraya or Caledith, who both had their own lives and concerns, was a big maybe for her.

"I suppose that there is no way to view such an end in any context other than death," she remarked while remembering a conversation with Khadijah a quarter of a year ago.

Despite technically being a native speaker of Low Common, and much more fluent in normal conversation than Tirith was, Oacaxo furrowed his thick brow in confusion again. "What you say?"

Even when discussing such a depressing topic, the way his bat like ears pricked up when he didn't understand what she was talking about made her laugh a little bit. "Nothing; it isn't important," she replied while finally dropping her travel bag; even when she'd stumbled during her nervous breakdown, it had remained secured to her shoulder and it was starting to cause an ache. "If you aren't in a hurry, and I'll be staying for at least a few weeks, do you mind if I try to just...rest for a bit, and wrap my head around...everything that's happened?"

He moved toward one of the relatively undamaged, larger trees in the middle of a miniature patch of forest inside the ruins. "There are huts up there; still good for sleeping," he said while pointing upward, and she cursed herself for having become so complacent in retirement that she hadn't even scanned the canopy when entering foreign territory. Built onto the thick branches sturdily enough to support jungle trolls but still reminiscent of some of the tree towns of her own people, there were at least four huts far above the ground. "Big one is mine; you get sleep in any another. No rush to work. Not schedule here; lonely life, but free." Beneath the trees was a roughshod table made from a slab of stone he'd probably hauled there himself, and it seemed as if he'd been growing sweet potatoes. Leaving her to her own devices, he sat down and began to prepare food; by the looks of the half cleaned and half dirty vegetables, she ventured a guess that he'd already started cleaning them when she'd arrives and experienced her episode.

Unsure of what to do next, she picked up her bag again and climbed the tree, staking out the hut that appeared to possess the best cover from sunlight. All personal items had been cleared out, and she'd need to roll out her sleeping bag for the next week or two, or however long she'd stay. It was connected to the other huts by a series of thick branches and wooden planks, and by peeking outside, she could better see her other roommate as he ignored her and promptly went about his business of food preparation.

The entire day had been bizarre and surreal. From believing she'd spend a few days praying alone in a ghost town to realizing that the one member of the tribe who'd been close to her had survived the genocide committed there, her understanding of reality had changed dramatically. The entire reunion couldn't have lasted more than ten minutes as they exchanged stories of what had happened, where they had been and what they planned to do. And now, she was in a hut while he was below cleaning potatoes like nothing had really happened.

Surveying the entire town from her vantage point, Tirith cleared her mind and felt thankful that the screams had stopped, and that she could look at those ruins with a clear mind. For a period, she'd honestly expected that she'd never find the time or desire to come and pay her respects. Soon enough, she'd at least be able to continue her final years a bit more comfortably, knowing that she would leave behind no loose ends.


	25. August 25, year 25

_August 25, year 25_

There might not be crockolisks at that altitude, but by the goddess there were a lot of trout.

Tirith dragged the next up out of the river, surprised at the sheer weight of all the fish as she dragged them to shore. The flapping of their tails caused a rather loud sound, and she was surprised at how their population seemed to replenish itself every day, even when Oacaxo ate four times as much as she did and never seemed to grow tired of eating the same things.

In spite of the smell, she slung the fishnet over her shoulder to haul the catch back to the ruins. One of the advantages of cohabitating with a troll was that she didn't need to worry herself about traditional elven aversion to ever smelling bad at all; as all of his people tended to believe, one could always take a bath in the river later, so why panic over a temporary bad smell?

Passing into the ruins of Xlatl through the back passage between the trees, she took care to avoid stepping on any of the numerous graves they'd dug together over the past two months. The initial two graveyards available had filled up fast, and when the two of them realized that they couldn't construct another that was far enough from any potential explorers - Oacaxo's tribe apparently held some sort of taboo about strangers looking at their people's graves - they decided to simply dig plots inside the ruins proper. So thick had the vines and bushes of the jungle grown that from just a few meters beyond the lines where the old ramparts had used to stand, a potential onlooker wouldn't be able to see anything other than tree trunks, elephant ears and gigantic flowers. Unless such an onlooker knew exactly where the ruins of a former Skullsplitter town was, there was simply no way anyone unwanted would ever find the place; it was too remote, too secluded, and situated at too high of an altitude for even loggers to take interest.

Beneath the tree huts that formed their dwellings, an improvised kitchen had been set up. Though Tirith was no longer the domestic type after having served in the sentinel army for ten millennia, a certain muscle memory remained from her life before the War of the Ancients, and she found herself at least able to organize the basic implements they'd need for better preserving their food over the long term. True to his caste background, Oacaxo knew how to do little other than fight, hunt and lift heavy objects. He was brilliant in comparison to the rest of his race that she'd met, and a very fast learner, but there was only so much she could teach him every day given how busy they were.

Busy...that was one word Tirith knew well. As she left the fish to thrash on a clean, dry bed of leaves, she immediately started to follow the sound of Oacaxo digging again, knowing that he was no less keen on losing the pace they'd maintained since her arrival than she was.

From the very first day, they had wasted little time undertaking the sad, grisly task of burying the people who had been his entire world. Much like the episode where she experienced the very beginning of a nervous breakdown upon entering the ruins before he calmed her down, their exchanges were so brief that she was often left wondering how they could interact so...normally. Never did he waste time when it came to searching for the remains of the townspeople, and her willingness to participate seemed to energize him. Because he seemed to repress much of his emotion just like she did, there was little fanfare aside from the two of them praying before moving on to another plot and another set of bones. What she had initially thought would take him almost another year to finish once she'd left ended up being almost finished after only two months. And, she didn't leave, though her abandonment of her post and her counseling in Stormwind was yet another topic that she shoved deep into the back of her mind and ignored.

By the time she'd found him via the faint sounds of his work, he'd apparently excavated a section of the longhouse where the town elders used to hold their meetings; as they'd deduced, the elders must have rushed into the communal building to develop an emergency contingency plan when their warriors had been melted to nothing by the spouts of napalm, only to find themselves burned into nothing as well by the illegal cluster bombs. The wooden planks that formed the floor of the building had fallen through and most of the walls had burned down, but the central pillars that had supported the burned out roof remained, forming a sort of skeleton. Like the rest of the town, the debris had rotted away and been consumed by the forest over the past year and some months, leaving behind mostly dirt and vines where the floor had once been.

Wordlessly, Tirith entered the skeleton of the building and found Oacaxo on his knees, carefully lifting bones out of an excavated hole. The skeletal war paint he applied every morning as a sign of his grieving was cracked, peeled in some spots and splashed with dirt, creating an interesting mix as she approached him. As his body moved, she began to understand his tribe's caste system in light of his physique.

That he was a large man wasn't surprising; most of the jungle trolls outside of the Horde were quite thick, similar to the dark trolls of her homeland. And that he seemed larger than most wasn't surprising since he was a warrior. His calves and forearms were quite bulky, which she had learned long ago to use as a measuring stick for physical power; large biceps were often just a sign of vanity among men. Most interesting, though, was his back. She'd seen men with muscular upper backs before, but he was the only one she'd seen whose upper back muscles were also vascular. Since his people didn't know Druidism, they had to construct their defenses by hand; she'd seen how much difficulty the humans and even the orcs experienced when digging ditches to bury the bottom of ramparts, and surmised that a warrior of Oacaxo's tribe was probably expected to do so manually. His body type would make more sense that way; all members of his race had big, wide feet for bearing loads and shovel like hands, but his upper back was similar to a brown bear's, purpose made for digging up rocks and hardened soil.

For sure he must have noticed Tirith watching him by then, and she knelt next to him and cleared her throat to announce her presence.

"Who did you find?" she asked him, repeating the most common exchange they seemed to engage in.

Grunting in response at first, he refrained from speaking as he lifted a skull up out of the ground. Due to the race's sexual dimorphism, differentiation between the women and the men was easy, and she could tell that this one was an older female. Probably older, judging by the tusks and teeth on the upper jaw.

He held the skull out in front of him, obviously inspecting the features for familiarity. His memory for faces had proven to be uncanny, but even then, a skull was not a face. "One of elders," he murmured, appearing partially distracted.

So far, he'd coped with the loss of his entire world surprisingly well. At least Tirith had _some_ of the women of Serenity in direct contact with her, even if a number of them cut off from the others after immortality due to the pain associated with an eternity lost. Oacaxo had absolutely nothing and nobody, yet she'd never seen him complain. Likely he'd finished mourning across the year before she met him, but regardless, he did seem to be rather contained in terms of his feelings. But there was something in the way that he paused that seemed different when compared to how she'd seen him react toward exhuming the remains of the fallen so far.

"How many of the elders haven't been buried yet?"

He didn't remove his gaze from the skull in his hands, almost in a trance as he looked at it. "Only one," he mumbled in reply. The soft tone of his voice insinuated that he knew who it was, and upon reflection, Tirith had a feeling that she did too. Images of pure spite in sentient form glaring at her provided a chilling reminder of how she'd once prepared herself to die in this place.

"Ixchel..."

"Yes."

The two of them sat for a moment, completely silent and completely still. A breeze came and went over the canopy above as the two of them sat, examining the remains of a truly vicious person who had been close to him nonetheless. Only the briefest hint of emotion worked its way across his face. Even under the war paint she could see it, and it was the most animated she'd ever seen him become. Despite his pain, and despite her extreme dislike of Ixchel, Tirith still found the rare display of something so raw almost beautiful. That it was only fleeting made it seem like the comets she used to measure by their passing every thousand years or so during her immortality.

"She was...an evil person. Evil from all senses of that word. She not able to felt any pain because she not had any heart. For so much years, we followed her. We made all thing she told us to make. When I was twelve summers old, she made me killed for first time...she said me that I had to be a man, like my father was. I cried when I made killed, and so Ixchel made me slept in the rain. When I was fifteen summers, she made me raped a war captive for first time...she said me same thing - be a man. And I cried, same thing, and she made me slept in the rain, same thing. When I was eighteen summers, she made me burned enemy village for first time...she said me same thing. But that time, I not cried...I already cried too much.

"She made our people killed other tribes, destroyed other villages just like Alliance destroyed ours. She made our people killed our own people, ordering execution for bad reasons. She scared us, controlled us, washed our brains, made us live like beasts. She had no light in her heart, no love for all thing, no remorse for what she did and no good in her at all, ever. She was a horrible and awful person.

"But...she was my mother. And she was the only one I ever have."

For someone possessing such a deep voice, it was probably as soft as he could speak. There was so much resentment behind his words, even in the stiffness of his posture, and Tirith could tell how bitter Oacaxo remained about the tyrant that was his bloodthirsty mother. This was the first time he'd spoken of Ixchel, and however brief his monologue was, it was enough for Tirith to hate the woman even more. But there was something in those brutish features under all the war paint that she could also identify with. A certain sorrow at the loss of a caregiver who, however pure her evil had been, was still the only family Oacaxo had ever known.

Holding the skull closer to him, he brushed the dirt away and kissed it on the forehead, neither recoiling nor reviling it despite the acrimony in his speech.

"Loa forgive you, mother...for you made so much evil in the world," he murmured, his expression hardened and blank as if he were shoving his bitterness down at that very moment but forcing himself to make amends of his own. "But I love you all the same..."

His voice trailed off, and Tirith knelt next to him for minutes as she felt it inopportune to interrupt him when he was still engaged in what appeared to be his way of coping. Eventually he placed the skull among a series of bones he'd laid out in the rough formation of a corpse. Once his body language loosened up and he turned to look at Tirith without the sorrow in his eyes anymore, she nodded toward the direction of the back exit of the town.

"It's okay to take breaks sometimes. I heard you working even before I woke up around noon. Come on," she said while standing and waiting for him to follow her. "I smell like fish and you're covered in dirt. It's better not to eat like this."

Over and done with the discovery of his deceased, despotic mother, Oacaxo readily followed, grunting in response as he often did when he wasn't in the mood for talking. The two of them walked slowly, and Tirith couldn't help but marvel at how similar her days at the ruins were to her life before the Third War. Ever since she'd become mortal again, she spent her days and nights worrying about death, wondering what it would be like to finally leave a world she thought would be hers forever. A large percent of her people were younger, and to them the opening of the world meant a few more centuries of life and a range of new experiences they could fill them with; Tirith's discontent was restricted to those of the truly ancient generations such as herself.

Yet at the ruins, time stood still again. She no longer found herself rushing to finish whatever duties she had in order to savor her free time before sleeping. There was a rough schedule, but it was flexible and open to adjustment, allowing her to wake up, sleep, eat and work whenever she felt comfortable doing so. While her fear of death hasn't disappeared entirely, she no longer had to repress anything in order for it to move to the back of her mind.

Although Oacaxo couldn't read minds, he had impeccable timing, and when he touched on the same subject as they surveyed stacks of lumber they'd salvaged and piled up near the ziggurat, she couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"Tirith...you said me in the start, you want to stay only some weeks."

"Yes, yes I did," she chuckled, causing him a bit of confusion. "And that's what I had originally planned."

"You said me before that you gotten some...problems, in the big human village. That the people who burned Xlatl want make you stay there, not kill you but be you quiet."

"That's true. And by now, I'm sure they're searching for me all over. I didn't plan on remaining here this long, and if I return, then I'll probably find myself in very serious trouble with the law."

When she used the word 'if,' he snorted, though his true reaction would continue to be unreadable as long as he kept the war paint on his face. "What you want to make, then?" His voice was laced with concern rather than any sort of displeasure at her presence, and she found it odd that of all people, _he_ would feel worried about _her_. Khadijah or Silviel perhaps, but not Oacaxo. "You said me you have no family, no home. And you said me starchildren use gold now, like other Alliance; not can you make a house on any land." The two of them walked carefully for a moment as they climbed around low hanging branches and the underbrush to exit the back of the ruins, and even over the sound of the river she could tell he hadn't finished his thought. "Where you go, after we finish burial for all Xlatl people?" he asked as they strolled toward the shallow creek they used as a wash basin.

For the entirety of the two months she'd spent there, she hadn't answered the question herself. Indeed, while she knew that she'd probably be sent to jail up in her return to Stormwind, she'd done her best not to think about it. Soraya didn't know where she was. Jaqulina didn't know where she was. Even Silviel's family didn't know where she was. And most dangerously of all, Finklesnap didn't know where she was. What Tirith had done was irresponsible, unplanned, and irreversible now that she'd already violated the conditions of her court ordered anger management counseling.

And it felt absolutely freeing.

"I don't know, Oacaxo. I didn't plan that far ahead and I don't want to." Standing about ten yards away from the sandy riverbank, she looked up at the late afternoon sky; the White Lady was just barely visible, but most of the sky was still bright. "You once told me, what was it...that we must always try to find the stars, no matter what?" she asked rhetorically, inwardly musing at how she could be quoting Ixchel, of all people.

Immediately, he understood and chucked inside of his throat. "Life is the purpose of life...to wake up and be free every day," he mused, quoting from the conversation they'd shared when they'd first met a year and a half ago. Goddess, had it really been that long?

"I lost track of that when I stayed in Stormwind, even with Soraya; I stopped looking for my stars," she said quietly as they walked across the sand. After so much time spent experiencing anxiety every time she even thought about the topic of her future, she was shocked at how easy talking about it out loud now felt. "I followed those stars, and they led me here to mourn the fallen. When we're making amends to the dead, then I'll follow wherever they take me next...and damn the laws of the Alliance and even my own people if they try to put control on me from the outside."

"Your memory is very strong," he mused, though he still didn't quite laugh with his mouth open; he never did that. She imagined that it would be a day to remember whenever he finally did.

Typically, the two of them bathed at the same time but out of view of each other, yet they swam in the same spot. Although he insisted there were no dangerous animals at such a high altitude, the two of them had the habit of remaining within earshot of each other as a precaution. That caused certain awkward difficulties, such as using the dugout latrines he'd built before her arrival, or when she'd had to sew and fashion a pad that past month and figure out what sort of lie to tell him when he asked her what she was making. Bathing was in interesting conundrum - it wasn't that different from swimming since her ragged clothes would become wet anyway, and yet the upheld the contradiction: bathing had to be out of view of one another, around the bend of the creek and behind some bushes, yet the experienced no shyness when swimming next to each other and watching the clouds.

Feeling particularly comfortable, Tirith just knelt and sat on the soft sand, resting her worn feet and hands after having hauled a few hundred pounds of trout (Oacaxo would probably eat half the catch on that night alone). Typical of his people, he displayed no shyness wading into the water in her presence, though she'd learned after two months that he understood boundaries very well despite the unsavory acts his mother had forced him to commit; he would never even think of removing his loincloth in her presence, even when submerged, and not once had he even spoken to her while either of them were bathing.

As she watched the dirt and the war paint drip off his body into the river, she actually considered how preferable a cohabitation partner was for the very first time. So comfortable had they grown around each other that she'd honestly never realized it before, but she was very lucky that his behavior was so subdued. To say that Tirith wasn't used to being around men was an understatement; for ten millennia, most of the night elf males were asleep in the dream, waking only a handful of times therein and even when they did, their society had ascribed to strict rules of gender segregation back then. Even after the men had returned in droves after the Third War, they generally lived in separate quarters and were very reserved in their dealings. So when their society opened a few years ago, she and the older generations found themselves unable to adapt the way the younger night elves could. She was shocked by how many of the younger generations quickly took to free mixing of the genders socially, in addition to other behaviors she wasn't used to. The outlanders were even worse; while the dwarves were mostly reserved, the humans and other races were incorrigible, and she frequently found herself restraining her fists when speaking to human males and dealing with their tendency to look at her chest while she was trying to tell them something important. To even think of living and sleeping in close quarters with them was a deeply discomforting thought.

And yet there was Oacaxo, from a race known for rather lascivious behavior, sleeping just three yards away from her every night. Her perception was still sharp; had he ever peeked into her hut or spied on her while she bathed, she would have noticed immediately. Not once did he ever touch her without reason, even to illustrate a point in conversation, nor did he stare anywhere other than her eyes, or face her directly if they sat close to each other, or pry into her personal matters. Of course, he as still a man; once or twice, she'd caught him checking her out if but for a few seconds if she bent over while working, but he'd always look away, and technically, she was guilty of doing the same thing to him as well. All things considered, he was very benign despite his ability to not be benign, and she began to wonder about his mentality.

On a whim, she simply asked the first thing on her mind.

"Oacaxo...did you ever sire children?"

At first, she worried that she was the one prying. Though he continued wading around about waist deep, he'd splashed enough water on his face for a far off look to become apparent, and she realized that given his people's ways, it might be a sensitive subject for him.

Regardless, he answered. "I'm sure, but I not know them. Not kids in Xlatl, but I was given as loan to other villages to bred with women of my caste."

Perhaps she was digging herself in even deeper, but her curiosity poked at her in a way she hadn't felt in a long time. "To breed?"

"Yes...breed. I was warrior caste, before I made canceled from the tribe. Not have friends, or life choices. Caste is from birth. My father was warrior, and my mother could choose all man she liked, so I was warrior. So any villages wanted more warriors, they called another village. I went...and I stayed with warrior women, like the womens who caught you last year."

"That's...very different. You don't know for sure if you have children, though?"

"No. Never. If I knew, maybe I would had feelings; feelings not allowed for warriors. So always, I went with women from other villages, so I would felt nothing for them and they would felt nothing for me. Only a trade between two Skullsplitter villages." There was a sadness in his tone again, and she felt guilty for having brought up the topic. Still, he continued to talk, and was much more chatty than his usual concise nature; she got the feeling that, after a year of separation from his people, he'd begun to cope with the primitive lifestyle he'd been born into. "I went to make the sex with women of my caste, maybe twenty times. Jungle troll women make pregnant easy; I'm sure that in some place, out there, there are kids of me. But I can never know who are they."

Tirith blushed despite his somber tone. The openness with which all of his people tended to discuss the S-word made her feel a little shy, but she knew him well enough to know that he didn't intend anything suggestive by it. And the fact that one of the few people she did care for in the world was opening up about a topic that made him sad caused her to listen, if a bit sheepishly.

"Oh...that's very unfortunate," she said while searching for the right words at such a moment.

"Yes...not good. If no feelings, then the sex is not good. Just a body function; same as blowing the nose or going the toilet. No passion, just a function that lasts a short time and then finishes. Pointless. Useless." Nonchalant and entirely unperturbed by the topic, he turned to her and flipped the conversation in the other direction. "Why you ask? You have kids?"

She hesitated; for the first time since she'd ever known him, it was the most direct personal question he'd ever asked her. Almost like she imagined the sound of him laughing out loud would be, it felt like a sort of milestone for him. In spite of her residual shyness over the topic he'd literally just been discussing, she found the revisitng of the old wound easier than she'd expected.

"I had a son once...a very long time ago. And a husband, too. Well, I mean, I was married twice, and my son was born to the first, but then I got divorced and married again...um...I had a son once."

For a second, the sad look returned to the big man's face, and she felt bad despite knowing that she shouldn't. "He was died?" Oacaxo asked innocently.

"Yes...a very long time ago. My husband did, too. In a war."

Even with the sharp nose, big jaw and hook like tusks, Oacaxo looked innocent all of a sudden; it lightened her mood almost enough for her to chuckle a bit. Without all the war paint, she noticed that he had no facial hair; not from shaving, but genetics. There were just one or two very short hairs on his chin, so small that she hadn't noticed them until then. It made him almost look like a large teenager, though from what he'd told her he was in his thirties - almost middle aged for his people.

"May your stars remind you of good times from them," he said in what she figured to be a short prayer.

The conversation eventually tapered off, and she swam near him for a bit as the evening drew closer. Mostly silence filled the air as it usually did when they swam to relax at the end of the day - she'd become used to being mostly awake during the daylight and only part of the night by then. A number of thoughts swirled around inside of her head, and she used the quiet time to sort them all out.

After their months spent together, Tirith didn't quite know how to label what they had with each other. Oacaxo was not her mate and engaged in no intimacy with her; that was very clear. He never pushed or hinted, and after the revelation of his views on feelings and relationships, she ventured a guess that he was the type to feel disinterested in casual relations. If she continued to cohabitate with him even after they finished all the burials, he'd never reject her, nor was he particularly likely to pursue a more intimate relationship.

But if she pursued it...the thought was odd to Tirith. After the loss of her second husband - after what had been a rather loveless second marriage anyway - she'd never planned on being with a man again. By the night, she'd never planned on dying, either, but now she was looking at a mere decade or two of life left. Fertility had returned to her race after the loss of immortality - mostly to the young, but also to a few older individuals, and she was no exception. She did occasionally feel certain urges when she could see or smell suitable men, or hear the sound of a deep voice, but propriety dictated that she suppress those urges. Suppression...just like how she dealt with so much else.

As Oacaxo started to wade upstream toward the secluded spot where he'd bathe in private, she watched those heavy shoulders sway. If she tried to follow him back there, he likely wouldn't feel comfortable; after two months, the two of them hadn't spent enough time as...whatever it is two people like them were called. Not friends; not exactly. Maybe before, but when she finally considered the notion, that label would no longer fit.

"Bah," Tirith chuckled out loud. Bah to labels and rules.

Wading upstream but toward an opposite secluded area, she let the warm water pour over her head as she silently thanked the goddess for the situation she'd found herself in. She was far away from the control of her psychiatrist, and no longer needed the brave new world and its vices of material wealth and zoning laws. Her lifestyle granted her more freedom than she'd ever had, and for the first time, she realized that she truly was beyond anybody else's control. If she chose, she could continue living out there for the rest of her days; nobody could stop her and force her to wither away in those death traps the humans called retirement homes, or in a prison cell or cramped apartment somewhere.

And she wasn't alone; she'd found someone who also didn't feel the need to label things, or rush things, or push for more than the good they already had. If feelings grew between her and Oacaxo, then she was sure she could pursue more with him; if feelings remained the same, then she was sure they could continue living together the way they already were, and they'd take care of one another into old age all the same. And if Tirith died in the rainforest in a mountain in Stranglethorn Vale, miles away from civilization, then it wasn't worse than dying back in Ashenvale but as a burden on Silviel's family, where she would always be a guest in Caledith's home.

Eventually, the stars shone in the sky a little early that night, and Tirith felt her mind clear for the first time in thousands of years. And perhaps, for the first time, she truly began to feel happy.


	26. November 13, year 25

_November 13, year 25_

Tirith shifted in the grass, grinning lazily as she felt herself begin to drift off to sleep. One of the advantages of living out in the jungle was that when she felt like coming down from her hut in the trees, she could do so; there was no need to worry about anybody spying in her, or anybody waking her up while passing by noisily. It was very rare that she ever chose to do so; after all, there wasn't much reason when she'd sewn enough blankets to make her hut a rather comfy place for sleep. However, there were certain days and nights where she simply couldn't resist, and felt the urge to descend to the forest floor.

Oacaxo stirred next to her, twitching slightly as she listened to the exact moment when sleep overtook him. As a general rule, they always slept outside together; if one of them took the initiate, the other would follow without needing to speak about it. The area beneath the huts up in the trees was spacious, even when their makeshift outdoor kitchen occupied part of that space, and they never experienced difficulty sharing the soft grass and leaves they occasionally used.

Over a month had passed since they'd finally buried the last of the people of Xlatl; their work was finally done, and all of the bones had been sorted, interred and prayed for. There wasn't as much work to do around the ruins anymore, and the two of them suddenly found themselves with copious amounts of free time. Without any acknowledgement, they had continued living out their lives as normal, never speaking of the life and friends she'd left behind in Stormwind as well as Kalimdor. In truth, she did feel a slight bit of guilt for the worry she likely caused to others; Soraya had taken her in as a charity case and Silviel's family did see it as their duty to check in on her from time to time. Regardless, they would both eventually move on. In the case of Soraya, they had never known each other that well; as far as the younger elf knew, Tirith will have simply jumped her counseling program and fled to another city. In the case of Silviel, the situation was a bit more tragic, but not inevitable; they knew that night elves Tirith's age would eventually die. They'd probably assume that she'd perished while traveling through Stranglethorn Vale. They would mourn her for sure, but their lives would continue. One of the advantages of having no living family members is that she wouldn't be hurting anybody too badly by just disappearing.

And disappear she did. At no point had she or Oacaxo discussed any sort of plans to move even after they'd finished all the burials. Why should they? Everything they needed was there. The river provided them fresh mountain spring water to drink and to catch fish and wash their clothes in; they had just recently finished stitching a net to hold their cultivated sweet potatoes in one of the empty tree huts, and bananas and figs grew abundantly enough that they could eat as much as they wanted. Fixing up the ruins and making their own lives more comfortable occupied their time now that they weren't so busy with digging holes, and they still found that there was little time to simply laze around.

But when the opportunity presented itself, they did. Life was comfy; Tirith felt even less burdened than she had during her servitude to nature. Just like then, time didn't matter anymore, but unlike then she wasn't expected to patrol or defend anything. In fact, they had even let their guard down enough to sleep in the grass twice a week or more, though usually not so close to each other.

Tirith didn't push, and neither did Oacaxo. When they slept in their huts, neither of them considered breaching the boundaries, and their behavior during the day was much the same aside from the fact that they talked to each other a little more often. Even on the nights when they slept on the forest floor, they both enjoyed their personal space. It was impossible to say that they lived as brother and sister given some of the sly glances and shy pauses they experienced down at the river, but by all measures, their shared life was an innocent one. Only on this night did they find themselves pushing the envelope ever so slightly.

Oacaxo had lied down to sleep first, finding himself drowsy after having skipped his afternoon nap to plant cucumbers on a fresh patch of soil on the edge of the ruins that were once the open air prison Tirith had been trapped in. Despite having no background in herbalism, he'd learned surprisingly fast once she'd taken the time to teach him what exactly to do. When midnight approached, he began dozing off at the pit fire they'd set to grill their fish, and he'd retired to their patch of grass after bidding her goodnight. As was her habit, she stayed awake later than him and woke up later, and she took her time washing her hands and teeth after dinner, and then put out the last embers of their pit fire.

For a long period of time, she watching him as he dozed off. A sense of familiarity she'd lacked even with her colleagues back at Camp Freedom or the Kaldorei consulate had settled in comfortably by then; it was the most equitable relationship she'd ever experienced outside of Serenity. They both took liberties in terms of their behavior as proverbial roommates. And as she looked at him that late night, the stars shone exceptionally brightly on the patch of grass directly next to his.

She thought about it. She didn't think twice. Innocent and intended nothing more than the sense of closeness, she lied down next to him, giving up any sort of pretenses or labels. Quiet as a nightsabre, she eased herself into the spot over a few minutes, but despite his drowsiness he stirred again when she first took the spot that was practically a part of his space. Back to back, they weren't in physical contact with each other, but it certainly felt like a boundary had been broken. He stiffened initially, mostly asleep and a small part awake as his body tensed the expectant way she remembered a man's did when sharing the same bed as a woman. For a split second she faltered, wondering if she'd gone too far and damaged what they already shared.

Her fears were alleviated when he loosed and relaxed once more, consciously aware of her presence. Neither scooting away from her nor drawing inappropriately near, he simply let himself fall asleep again, playing it off as a natural behavior and falling into a deep, peaceful sleep.

It was all she wanted; there was no need to push. Whatever was meant to be would come to pass, and whatever was the best choice for them would certainly happen. Peaceful herself in a way she hadn't felt in either of her two unhappy marriages nor alongside even her shield sisters while out on patrol, she found herself drifting off next to him, smiling to herself as she silently celebrated having pushed the envelope without bending it, and crossed a boundary without altering their living arrangement irreversibly.

Her dreams were just as peaceful when she fell asleep, starting as colors and shapes that danced around her disembodied view. Sound joined the mix, and soon enough she found herself on patrol again, but in a strange place.

Temperate pines grew up next to tropical broad leaves, mixing a bit of Ashenvale and Stranglethorn as she found herself in a fantastic combination of the old and the new in regard to her own sense perception. A featureless mount carried her through the trees as she heaved her gear effortlessly, like it was constructed of pure starlight. The endless night above blackened the surroundings in the most beautiful way possible, and the air ruffled her hair so teasingly that she had to let it down.

All around her she could hear other featureless mounts galloping through the woods. Running in formation, she and her dark companions blazed a trail without an end in sight, possessing not a care in the world as they didn't even bother pondering over a final destination. In her peripheral vision, their exact identities were unknown and unimportant; they were her companions, at her side the entire way, and that was all that mattered. No words were shared, nor did they need to be, as they patrolled the world from then to eternity, thanking the goddess for every minute of life they'd been blessed with.

Out of time. Out of place. Out of mind. A place where nothing was measurable or held to schedules anymore. A place where she could be free.

Too soon - far, far too soon - her world was blinded by light again. Ugly, detestable light blotted out the stars and brightened the sky, stealing away her beautiful blackness as the night disappeared. Wonderful, comfortable night.

The light fought her, tried to wake her up, tried to poke at her eyelids, and she became stubborn. Even when her companions disappeared alongside the trees, she tried to fight the urge to open her eyes, to see what was there, and to give in for the sake of giving in. Even when the footsteps rang out, she refused to take heed. By the time she realized that she'd let her guard down, it was already too late.

The footsteps stopped, hovering all around her as the faint light of the very early morning filtered in through the canopy far too soon. And before she could even stretch, the voice pierced her imagined darkness.

Harsh, grating, nasally and terse, it almost hurt her ears despite its low volume. About as much condescension as could be fit into a single tone of voice slathered it like a sloppy Ironforge breakfast sandwich, and she didn't need to think long of who it was.

"You really screwed up this time, donkey ears."

Pounding against her chest, Tirith's heart raced to the point of causing her physical discomfort. When her body was still partially asleep, the increase in heart rate almost nauseated her and she opened her eyelids far too quickly. Although it was just a few moments before dawn, the full light of day hadn't broken out yet and the night elf at least didn't find herself blinded. Blurry vision helped her to scan the area, though before she could even react she felt a boot the size of a human's small foot placed right on her upper ribcage near her armpit. The pressure wasn't intense, but the roughness and the sound of the safety on a blunderbuss clinking warned her not to rise.

Confusion and panic mounted as Tirith struggled to comprehend the situation. After so many months in hiding, in such a remote area, with so little clues as to her location...how?

Even after a year and a half, Marge's unattractive features were clear behind the blur. Cigarette ever balanced between her lips bearing a few inches of undisturbed ash, her sneer practically stretched from there and back to Stormwind. "I have to hand it to you, bitch. You certainly chose a secluded spot to carry out your high treason," the angry dwarf unintentionally growled. In a mere year and a half, her voice seemed to have degenerated significantly due to her smoking habit. "Nobody else took up your case with the bailiff back at the capitol until got word that you'd jumped bail. You thought you'd get away with it, didn't you?"

Eyes scanning the area nervously, Tirith kept her mouth shut as her mind struggled to regain its logical sense despite the rude awakening. From her vantage point, she could only see Marge's lower body and those of two other dwarves, though she could hear what sounded like two more human sized persons behind her just out of view. Oacaxo's lungs rumbled further away, as if he'd scooted to get some space but remained on the ground, likely due to the two rifles being point at him. He might be technologically impaired, but she knew that he was no fool. The two of them were cornered, and there was little they could do; one false move and they'd have to hope that the first shots didn't cripple them. It took a long time to reload a gun - far longer than a bow - but it was the initial shot that the former sentinel was worried about.

"Of course, why wouldn't you think you could escape? You blue monkeys all support each other back at the capitol. Your little ingrate of a roommate actually reported your disappearance to your species' consul, and they all tried to keep it under wraps. But...by the Light, donkey ears," Marge cackled, gut laughing at her own joke and even garnering a few snickers from the riflemen around her. "Your species properly chose subservience of the civilized peoples of the world over a year ago. Did you really think that your consul could file a missing persons report in Darnassus and not have the news bounce back to Stormwind? It was almost cute, how clever you thought you were, and how sentient you thought your people could be."

Even without stretching, Tirith began flexing her muscles surreptitiously to test her strength after having been awoken so abruptly. Millennia of combat experience flashed through her mind as she sought for a similar situation she'd been in, thinking of how she and her shield sisters had once been caught in a sticky situation near a satyr hideout. Guns changed the entire equation, however. The brave new world was an entirely different place.

"And that Dramet nitwit back at Nesginwary's camp...you actually _told_ her that you were coming here? To the bombed out, depleted crater where these beasts once lived? She told us a sob story about how much she missed you and some such rubbish, spilling all the beans after just one cup of tea. Apparently, some people are actually stupid enough to care for you monkeys; Dramet honestly believes that we came here to save you." Another snide, arrogant laugh rang out, and Tirith felt her anger boil upon the realization that Jaquilina had been deceived.

Not as much as her anger over the fact that Xlatl was in ruins because of the relentless woman standing over her.

"I honestly don't know what it is that causes the savages of the world to stick together. You know, I wouldn't have guessed that you'd come here to this graveyard for cave people to hide from the law, but now that I see what it is, I'm not surprised. Animals stick together, don't they? I knew it the moment I saw you hollering about these creatures protecting their larva or some garbage like that. I guess you've come to pick at the corpses of their grubs."

Tirith's heart raced again, but not from shock this time. An almost feral rage flowed throughout her very being as the pain and loss of so many innocent people came flooding back into her mind all at once. It wasn't overhwelming, but it was intense, and the fact that she retained her cognitive faculties the entire time made the pure hate she felt for Marge increase tenfold.

Ever calm and relaxed, Oacaxo restrained his berserker rage and didn't move. His breathing was even, and had they shot him already then Tirith would surely have woken up already, so his silence wasn't worrying. Given his warrior's background, he probably knew to wait for Tirith's lead since she was the more experienced half of the pair. But from her vantage point, she still struggled to see what they could do other than roll to once side and hope that the bullets hit them in their limbs or abdomens rather than their heads.

Out of nowhere, Marge waddled forward and stuck her leg out. Knowing that absorbing the kick and pretending to be injured was better than reacting and guaranteeing that she'd be shot, Tirith didn't move, letting the angry dwarf kick her hard in the stomach. She groaned loud as the wind was knocked right out of her; even if Marge had a poor diet and chain smoked, she was still a dwarf, and was possibly not that far behind Tirith in terms of raw strength. It was far, far less than enough to actually hurt the night elf, but it certainly didn't feel good, and she played it up the best she could by panting and whimpering. Oacaxo snorted angrily just quietly enough for only Tirith to hear, but otherwise remained still.

"So let me tell you what we're going to do to you, donkey ears. This beast you're sleeping with? Dead, like the other monsters here. And you? You're a traitor trying to resurrect a skeleton army from the dead monsters here using voodoo. You're necromantic, psychotic and dangerous, and we're going to string you up in a public square once we drag you by your toes back to civilization. You've cost the Alliance far too many resources and far too much time given the initial search for you and the shitstorm you caused for my camp back when you flipped out.

"It's over, you wasteful, trifling, time stealing animal. I hope they shave your head when they tie you to a flagpole for the children in Stormwind to beat you with sticks."

Marge stepped back just then, her rifle clinking against the back of her breastplate. Although the rifles of the others held still, Tirith knew that it was only a matter of seconds before the two gunmen behind her shot Oacaxo in the head; they viewed him almost as they viewed a murloc, and they wouldn't even particularly celebrate his unceremonious murder if given the chance to carry it out.

Time slowed down as, more than anything she'd ever fought for, Tirith felt she truly had a reason to act. During the Long Vigil, she had shield sisters to take her place were she ever to fall; Oacaxo and the fallen of Xlatl had nobody to carry out their revenge except for her. In spite of the adrenaline in her veins, Tirith's mind felt clearer than it ever had been.

She sprang from her spot in the grass at the same time that two shots rang out. One was behind her, and she had no means of checking how badly Ocaxo had been hurt save her knowledge that he had survived at least long enough to elicit blood curdling screams from the two humans followed by two pops that sounded like necks snapping. The two dwarven males began loading their powder based rifles, though far too slowly as they panicked at the scene.

The second shot belonged to the human who had been stepping on Tirith's ribcage, and the bullet tore down her upper arm and her back. Hot, burning pain ripped through her as the top layer of her skin was ripped in a straight line, especially toward her left upper back, which had been the part resting on the ground. The bullet missed its mark but caused her copious amounts of blood loss, possibly leading to the human's end; he'd have no time to reload again and was no longer a threat.

Cold, calculating strategy drove the night elf as she leapt toward the two dwarven riflemen in front of her. The first finished reloading in time, but shot past Tirith and she could hear Oacaxo grunt again; fury fueled her actions but she couldn't stop to see if the shot had been fatal or not. Not by that point. Her warrior's objectivity returned, and her focus was singular: to rip and tear every one of those bastards in front of her until she could make them die in the most painful ways possible.

She reached the second dwarf, ignoring the first since he still had to reload. Slashing out with her hand, she raked her long, claw like fingernails across his face, scratching the surface of his eyeballs and causing him to fumble with his rifle. The weapon hit the ground butt first and it triggered, sending more lead upward and into the man's beared chin. He fell to the ground, covering his face and jaw in his hands as nondescript wounds bled more profusely than all but the most skilled of healers could have repaired. It only took Tirith another second before she impaled the first dwarven rifle man's thick neck with the sharp nail of her middle finger, gouging his carotid artery so deeply that the dark tube partially hung outside his flesh. He couldn't even find the strength to gasp as he hit the ground, and when the human behind her finished reloading, fired off another shot at Oacaxo and then fired out in a death groan, Tirith realized that the two dwarves she'd injured had no more aide other than the stern, chain smoking commander herself.

Marge's rifle rang out, sending a lead round straight into Tirith's waistline. It cut through her cloth shirt and ate into the side of her body, feeling more cold and numb than painful at first due to system shock. Tirith had seen enough puncture wounds in the abdomen of friend and foe alike to know what that meant; this wasn't an action show at the Stormwind theatre where the heroine could get shot in her midsection and continue fighting. This was real life. It was only a matter of seconds, not even minutes, before she'd pass out due to blood loss.

Marge bellowed, letting out a battle cry that contained as much spite as it did false confidence. The dwarf's face contorted in the most repulsive way possible as Tirith pounced on her, shocking the commander beyond all belief when the night elf just refused to die. The stocky woman fought back as the exhausted elf forced her to the ground, but the loud thud of Oacaxo's body hitting the grass for the last time sent Tirith into a primal, uncontrollable sense of wrath that pumped endorphins beyond a rate that was healthy. Marge hit the grass as well, shrieking in horror when Tirith snapped the steel rifle in half like a twig and scratched a series of disgusting gashes all over the dwarf's face.

Kicking and screaming in an adult temper tantrum, Marge's petulant voice was soaked in a shocked, defiant recalcitrance as the commander who never thought anyone could touch her found herself slowly murdered in a horrible manner. Tirith bit three of Marge's fingers off, crushed Marge's throat with her thumb, stabbed a shallow wound into Marge's ear after swiping the commander's own combat knife, beat Marge senseless until her own knuckles hurt, and did everything she could to keep Marge alive as long as possible while exacting revenge for the people of Xlatl. Her own grievances against Marge were forgotten as she focused solely on fulfilling a primordial version of justice for the spirits of the fallen, indulging in a bloodlust that was hard wired into her people's gene pool but had supposedly been cured out by the former Well of Eternity.

The blackness pulled at the sides of Tirith's vision, and only when she had reduced Marge to a helpless, crippled, twitching mess like she'd done to Persephone. Even when her bullet wound stopped hurting, even when her knuckles became numb, even when her sense of direction failed her, Tirith didn't forget the spirits of the people of the town, expending her last breath to whisper a silent prayer that she'd be forgiven for her violence and that the souls of the restless would find their forever sleep in the ruins now that the person who had ordered their genocide had been ended.

Marge stopped screaming, and her face became still aside from her clattering teeth, and even when Tirith felt so light headed that she thought she'd float away, she held on to consciousness for as long as she could in order to glare at the woman who had caused so much pain to so many people.

Not wanting the source of her own pain to be the last thing she saw, Tirith fought with all her strength to move her neck. Tilting her head up, she was able to see the stars just as she lost balance. Shining even in the early morning light, they twinkled so brightly, reminding her of all the people she'd ever lost. Her head hit the grass alongside the other bodies in the ruins, and her last bit of energy was spent as she reached her hand upward, smiling to herself as she pretended that she could touch the stars if she tried hard enough.

Endless night chased the dawn light away. Blackness took over her vision and a heavenly weightless sensation washed over her as she felt herself drift on the waves. She felt comfortable...so comfortable. The rainforest lied still again, and the natural sounds that had replaced the melee soon faded into nothing as the sound of clouds swirling filled Tirith's ears.

Far away...far away but drawing nearer, a chorus sang. Like an angelic choir, they hummed their slow tune, further increasing Tirith's sense of drowsy calmness. Her limbs lost their sense of touch and soon after her body dissipated, and the light from where she had once been shone like the moon in her vision. Light against darkness, but not the light of the sun; it was the light of the moon, the light of the stars - the light of her as she floated in the black mist.

The choir sand a bit louder, yet still sounded ethereal and otherworldly as she saw the other light ahead. Her blue mixed with the other spot's white, and she felt herself being pulled toward it. Residual stubbornness caused her to resist, and the embrace of the white light continued reeling her in. It was a warm embrace, a caring embrace, a kind embrace, and that sense of familiarity caused Tirith to fight it even harder. Rays of whiteness penetrated her blueness, anchoring them together as the figure hovered toward her on feathery wings.

Limbs became visible but didn't move to navigate through the blackness, merely floating next to the slender, elegant body surrounded by silk cloth. A hand reached out, offering Tirith nothing but love - a love greater than a mother for her child, expecting nothing in return as it tried to guide her toward it.

That love terrified her more than any single thing in her entire life.

She tried shaking her head, but found that she no longer possessed different body parts. Reduced to a blue orb, she found herself compelled to float before the woman of shining light, exposed and given no means to hide anything. Bare and observed, she gave up her resistance, finally understanding the futility of it all.

The white lady ran its fingers through Tirith's blue rays, gazing upon on her in a way that signaled no judgment, disapproval or control.

 _Are you ready, child?_

Had she eyes, tears would have streamed out of them at that moment. Absolute terror mounted as the closeness to the incorporeal being became both unbearable yet also inescapable, impressing onto Tirith a clearer sense of inevitability than she'd ever felt.

"Yes..." she whimpered, unable to contain herself even when reduced to a similar incorporeal state.

Love remained untainted by suspicion or displeasure, and the vastness of the white lady's patience made itself known.

 _But you are sad._

"I shouldn't be. It's over...it's finally over. I'm done."

 _Is that what you want?_

Guilt overtook her, but without any place to run or hide, it felt crushing. Forced to accept every negative aspect of herself, she confessed her sins, finding that she possessed no recourse. "No...it isn't. I knew my time would come, but I'm not happy."

The white lady continued to regard her not with amusement so much as curiosity. The two of them floated even more closely to one another, and the paralyzingly terror in reaction to the overhwelming love caused her to wail.

 _Why are you not happy?_

Tirith tried to answer according to her natural inclination, but stopped herself at first when she remembered that her natural inclination when asked about her feelings was to lie. Forcing herself to yield to the exposure and lay her heart bare for the winged being to see, she gave in to the urge to finally speak the truth.

"I waited for so long...so many thousands of years. At Suramar, I couldn't be happy and so I was sad. At Serenity, I knew only duty and so I was cold. I became free...after so long, I became free, and was able to live." Despite having no throat, she choked, finding her shame at the admission hampering her ability to confess, and yet the white lady stood silently until Tirith could talk again. "And it was supposed to be such a short time anyway...a matter of decades, maybe only one or two, where I could be free after millennia of entrapment. It's minuscule and pointless in comparison but it was mine! It was supposed to be mine! After all this time, I was supposed to have my respite!mim sorry...I'm so sorry...I'm ungracious and ungrateful, and I'm just so sorry."

The two of them floated around each other, the white cloth floating around the white lady covering Tirith and shielding her from a world that no longer existed.

 _You are a good person, Tirith Nightshade._

The winged being's words didn't make sense, and she found herself confused at the way it just continued to run its white fingers through her blue rays. At no point did the love she felt radiating from it diminish, and yet the warmth dissipated over time, and soon enough she found herself separated from the protective wall of cloth. The white figure didn't flap its wings or swim with its limbs, and yet the space between the two of them increased, and Tirith found herself separated and rapidly becoming alone.

 _May you be thankful for every minute you are blessed with...and may you find what it is you seek._

Just barely through the blackness, Tirith thought she could have seen the white lady wave to her, though there was no sense of finality or farewell to the act. Respite overtook her, and she began to regain her sense of direction as the white figure faded out of existence, promising to gift her with that warmth again one day.

A different type of darkness returned, and Tirith found herself falling into a dreamless sleep. Off in the distance, the deep yet pained voice of a large man wept, warming her in a different way until her world went to sleep along with her.


	27. Some time in November, year 25

_Some time in November, year 25_

Sense perception returned slowly. Bit by bit, the pieces fell into place as five senses coalesced into a reality. Fleeting at times, some of the sensations disappeared after their discovery, truncating Tirith's existence and the existence of everything around her. Much like waking up after having been poisoned, her numbness felt both comforting and unnerving at the same time, and she fought a losing battle to interact with any of the sensations which were occurring around her.

Sight was the most stubborn. A darkness that wasn't calming pervaded across her vision, and she found herself unable to see anything aside from the occasional sliver of color escaping into her peripheral view. Her senses of direction and balance were still skewed, and when the colors dashed away from her, she found herself unable to follow them.

Smell was more or less agreeable. The moist mist of the higher altitude cloud forests had given way to the more humid lowland climate, and various pollens and natural fragrances passed by her nose until the odors of civilization replaced all that she knew.

Taste and touch were useless. She couldn't feel anything in her body, including her tongue, and two sources of perception were rendered useless. The paralysis she was experiencing added to the sense of helplessness, and when she felt water being forcibly poured down her throat, she panicked in fear at the fact that her throat swallowed the sustenance without requiring her brain's command.

Hearing was by far the most valuable sense, yet still truncated. Individual noses reached her ears before disappearing, and most of the sounds were never complete enough for her to realize where she was or what was happening. However, what worried her the most were the portions of which she did gain a measure of comprehension.

"...medically, did die. No need to mince words..."

"Resurrected?"

"...much alive, but in critical condition regardless..."

Panic rose up inside of her at the words, and Tirith struggled to recall what her most recent memory had been. She had been asleep...next to Oacaxo. They were...they were ambushed. By whom?

Marge? It was Marge, and a group of...oh no.

Recollection smashed into Tirith's head hard, and she found her ears filled by sounds of gunshots. Even if her vision was dark, mental images were still possible for her, and the gunshot fired by a dwarf at her jungle troll friend behind her lit up her view. Stars shone down at her as she reached up, her blood stained fingers pointing toward the sky. Sorrow replaced anger as she began to fear the worst in several fronts.

Her abdomen no longer hurt, nor did the scar that had been torn across her back. In fact, nothing hurt at all; she couldn't feel anything, not even muscle ache, as she sought in the darkness for her extremities. For a brief second, she felt a tingling somewhere below her head, but soon enough it had disappeared. Aside from that, she was going nowhere.

Several more voices came back, followed by the sound of a weight being placed on wood.

"...facility is the best bet. Booty Bay is no place for medical transit, plus...

"...of course, once we..."

"...for the Harborage. They're on the verge of joining the Alliance - the road is protect..."

"...so we're going to have to sign here and sign here..."

"...that facility. Those space goats really know what they're doing..."

Too many unfamiliar voices floated around Tirith's head, filling her with grief and panic. She should have felt overjoyed, rejoicing in the realization that she wasn't dead after all. This was no dream, of that much she was sure; she was most definitely living, and every so often a muscle twitch told her that she was slowly, gradually, progressively regaining her sense of touch.

There were too many questions she was unable to ask of anyone, however. Frozen in place, she tried to feel sensation in her lips, but found that she couldn't even move the muscles of her neck, much less her face. The voices were very close to her, but she couldn't see the speakers. She wanted to ask where she was, who they were, how they'd found her in the jungle...where her friend was. Had he survived being shot multiple times, possibly in the head? When he'd fallen, did he ever get back up? If so, why wasn't he by her side now? How much time had passed?

And Marge...oh goddess. As much as Tirith worried for Oacaxo, her sense of self preservation returned quickly when she remembered that she'd dismembered the commander of an Alliance outpost. Marge was a mass murderer, but Tirith had no proof. The angry dwarf couldn't testify against her, nor could any of the henchmen who had died there, but the fact of the matter was that the scene would look very bad from the outside looking in. Tirith was an outlaw who had bailed on her anger management counseling, took up refuge in enemy territory and would have been surrounded by the bodies of important people in the faction when discovered. Even if Marge had died, the angry dwarf had won; the commander's goal had never been to kill Tirith, but simply to put her behind bars out of a combination of racism and possibly the desire to jostle for a higher position of authority.

Tirith could actually feel blood coursing through her veins at a higher and then much lower speed. While she couldn't actually feel her limbs, she could certainly feel the nausea associated with rapid fluctuations in heart rate. More sounds rang out and in a very weak manner, she could sense warmth.

"...take good care of her there. Nothing to worry about."

"If you say so. We just want the best...why we're asking."

"No, I understand."

"And for...behind...best of care?"

"Absolutely; the government is behind this project...program out there."

That voice...there was a voice among the people speaking that sounded familiar. One. Two. Three. Three familiar voices, but many more unfamiliar.

Why were they talking around her? Was Tirith hidden? Could they see her? She knew that she wasn't in a coma; she'd observed Delebria, one of the younger women at Serenity, suffer a coma due to poisoning by a satyr. Over time, Priestess Lamynia healed the young elf completely but during the thirty hour interim, poor Delebria had been unable to experience any physical sensations other than hearing at all. She could hear everything said around her, but could feel no tingling in her limbs or temperatures changing around her. Tirith could feel all of those things...so what was happening to her?

"Farewell."

Farewell? Was that being said directly to her? The person sounded sad...they must be a friend. Tirith struggled to move her hands, to open her eyes, but the sound of wheels on gravel filled her world and very soon she was able to guess that she was inside a wagon of some sorts. The air pressure had increased along with the musty smell of an enclosed wooden box, and there were at least two horse pulling. Another set of wheels rang out in unison, and she surmised that the same two horses were pulling two entirely closed wagons on a row - one of them containing herself.

Farewell...did they think her dead? She couldn't be in a coffin; the air pressure was high, but not _that_ high. Possible scenarios ran through Tirith's mind, but she couldn't quite figure out which one was hers. She wasn't in a coma, and certainly couldn't be dead. She didn't feel physical pain, though not all her sense of touch had returned to her; perhaps she was still injured. Given the gunshot wound in her abdomen, however, pain should have returned to her long before the odd muscle spasm. Had she been healed?

The grinding of wheels on a road increased in volume, drowning out the conversation muffled by the wooden box. How ironic that her sense of hearing returned almost to half of its normal strength just as the ambient noise began to overwhelm a conversation she wanted to observe. Metal links clinked near her ears, and so obviously inside of the box, and she could hear what sounded like a light material bobbing up and down against wood. For the longest time the ride continued in that fashion, and allowing her logic to take over, Tirith gave up on trying to communicate and instead focused on regaining control of basic motor functions.

Little by little, bit by bit, Tirith practiced flexing her muscles. When she focused only on that and nothing else, the changes occurred at a relatively rapid pace. It couldn't have been an hour before she learned that she was propped into a position that left her sitting on her knees, feet beneath her, on top of a blanket. Another hour and she could feel that her back wasn't resting against anything, and that the gash opened by the sideways near miss from a rifle bullet had been healed entirely. Her arms were only slightly more difficult a case: after a few more hours she realized they were suspended above her, held over her head by leather wristbands that were chained to the ceiling of the little box. Her legs were unrestrained and the ceiling was low enough such that when her upper body hunched over due to gravity, her shoulders were unstrained and in no danger of injury from the restraints. Her muscles didn't ache, but her entire body felt tired, and beyond establishment of basic control over her muscles again, she didn't push herself.

Hunger and thirst nipped at her the whole time, and she thanked Elune for having at least been woken up after a night when she'd had little to eat; in her condition, the urge to relieve herself at a toilet would have been unbearable. She gladly accepted the growling stomach and parched lips she found herself afflicted with. And if she was to remain chained all the way to her destination, then at least it meant she could rest her body rather than be forcibly marched to wherever they were taking her.

Cold, hard logic continued to reign even after she fell asleep for the first time. Despite her position, she reckoned that she had slept for many long hours judging by how rested she felt. By that time, she was confident enough in the stability of her muscles to shift the position of her legs, leaning as low to the floor as she could in order to stretch her legs out and rid herself of the pins and needles. Her head was still woozy and she reckoned that she wouldn't be able to run, as if she was no longer in pain but was still weakened by a very serious recent accident.

Getting shot qualified as that, but she hadn't expected the effect to be this severe. This didn't feel like any injury she'd suffered before, and Tirith began to wonder if she'd been afflicted by blood poisoning.

Many more hours were spent fighting off thirst and trying to eavesdrop on the two male voices outside of the wagon. Perhaps they had stopped to rest while she'd been asleep; it was the only possibility that made sense considering the fact that she hadn't heard the wagon and horses come to a halt a single time since she'd first regained consciousness. Only after what felt like a day had passed - when factoring in quite a good deal of sleep - did the wheels finally slow down and eventually stop. Replaced by the sound of a few more horses whinnying plus the boots of other people on the gravel around the corner of a building, her ears swiveled and struggled to hear what was happening around her.

For a few minutes, the two voices of people she assumed were the wagon drivers sounded far away as they spoke to other people. Tirith remained quiet, working to understand her surroundings before she made her consciousness known.

The voices drifted further away and appeared to speak jovially, and once the ambient noise had died down, she realized that one of the two wagon drivers had a very thick accent, as if he didn't quite speak Common that well. It was an accent that sounded vaguely familiar in an unlikeable way, but it was hard to pin down nonetheless. In whatever context she had heard that accent in, it wasn't one where Common was being spoken. Metal clinked and she recognized the sound of silver coins based on the way the discs echoed - she'd been around long enough to notice subtle differences in the weights and densities of different metals. One of the two drivers returned to the front of the wagon where the horses were, while the other one - the larger, accented one - approached the back of the wagon where Tirith's box was situated. Whether he was coming for her or not was no longer relevant; if they thought her dead then they needed to know otherwise, and if they knew she was alive, then they needed to know she was awake.

"Water..." she panted as the unusually heavy footsteps came closer. They didn't belong to another night elf because the feet weren't long enough based on the echoes, but no other races of the Alliance were that physically large...who could it be?

The door to her box swung open, causing the sunlight to hit Tirith's tired eyes too brightly and too quickly for comfort. She instinctively shut her eyes, but didn't try to struggle in her restraints due to the lack of aggression she sensed coming from whoever had opened the door. Soon enough a large frame that was even more broadly shouldered than Pontus back from the consulate blocked part of the light, creating an odd mixture of light and dark that stung her eyes regardless.

Not even giving her a cursory glance, the large man reached inside as if he didn't worry that she'd try to kick him and offered what appeared to be the silhouette of a waterskin. It was still difficult for her to tell given that her eyes wouldn't adjust properly to the stinging, invasive sunlight.

"Drink this," the accented voice instructed her in a tone that was curt but polite enough.

Her cracked lips propelled her to drink first and ask questions later. Her tongue stung from the water due to how parched it was, and the water tasted odd; she didn't know if it was tainted or if her dry throat was simply playing tricks on her. There wasn't much water in the relatively small container, but the larger driver tilted it up to help her drink all of it.

It was then that she began to notice qualities that caused her a bit of unease. By the standards of night elves, Tirith was a tall woman, hence why she'd been chosen as a heavily armored dragoon. She was as tall as most of the men and taller than a number of them, and far taller than any human or orc. But the silhouette offering her water had an arm just as long as hers, and a hand which was twice as large as her hand. The eyes were glowing an odd gold color, not quite like the Druids of her own people but radiating power nonetheless. In her efforts to quench her thirst, sit up straight and struggle against the blinding sunlight, she failed to make out any details of the man's face other than his pale blue skin, and soon enough he'd pulled the empty waterskin away and shut the door again, leaving her on her own without any explanation.

"Where am I," she gasped as her eyes were shocked by the transition of light and dark to just total darkness once more. "Wait..."

Without the ambient noise, she could hear the man walking away and distinctly noticed the sound of hooves clopping on the gravel before he joined what sounded like a human at the front of the wagon and spurred the horses on again. Before she could protest, the wagon jolted to another start and the sound of the wheels against gravel drowned out everything else, leaving her dumbstruck inside her box.

For a rather long time, Tirith tried to call for the drivers' attention, demanding explanations for what was happening and where she was. All in vain, her calls that eventually turned into anguished cries fell on deaf ears and she began to wonder if they could even hear her at all. Only after she felt the effects of her exhaustion did she cease her efforts, and resigned herself to saving her strength for the next time the wagon stopped. If they wouldn't give her any information, then she very well might kick the next person to open the door. Under normal circumstances, she would have ripped open both her leather restraints and even the metal latch at her wrists by then, but even under the sway of such a sense of entrapment, she knew to be patient; if enough time passed, she'd be able to escape even before the wagon stopped.

Hours ticked by before she began to give in to the urge to sleep again. It was a calculated risk; if she slept through their next stop, she'd lose the chance both to ask for information and to resist if they tried to touch her or do anything to her. If she forced herself to stay awake, her body might lack the energy to break free before they took her somewhere dangerous. Despite the spliced conversations she remembered about medical treatment and taking care of her, any goodwill she might have held for these people eroded over the period of time during the grueling ride. And when she did fall asleep again and wake up in the same restrained position, her ears filled with the same sound of wheels on gravel, she began to seethe.

It wasn't long after the second time she'd slept that she could hear more noises. Other mounts passed by the wagon, and she could hear other riders greeting the two wagon drivers. All of them spoke Common and they all sounded friendly, and gradually the sounds of an Alliance settlement - albeit a small one - reached her ears again. From the sounds of it, Tirith's experience told her that they were in an even more humid area than before, and that much of the settlement was outdoors. Numerous languages sounded off around her, one of them familiar from long ago and thoroughly unpleasant to her ears, though she didn't know why. Once the wagon came to a stop, she stiffened in her box, confused by the poor treatment she'd received yet the rather friendly sounding voices outside.

"Hail, riders; you're here quite early. Is the poor woman inside?"

"Yes, and she's relatively well. She drank her serum on the way here and she was even talking to herself, so her faculties of speech are fine."

"Oh, splendid, this has to be the smoothest patient transfer we've ever received. We're all ready for processing inside; if you please, our staff will escort her and I can handle payment in the front office with you both."

"Most appreciated."

Poor woman? Patient? Talking to herself? Tirith fell absolutely silent as she tried to listen to as much as she could, her bewilderment increasing exponentially.

Footsteps of at least a dozen people began to approach. They were light and casual, but the number of unknown persons put her in edge, and the fact that she'd been given a serum of some sort to drink caused her to began mentally inspecting her senses for any impairment. The footsteps stopped some paces away, and eventually she could hear the two drivers leave alongside the other person who'd been speaking to them, and what sounded like a male dwarf stepped forward.

"No sudden movements, boys, and no eye contact either. All smiles, positive energy, and this should be simple."

"Right, boss."

"This is a night elf, so make sure to steer clear of her elbows and hands. No takedowns unless we're forced to, but if I blow the whistle I need every man here on restraint duty. Alright, clear off the bench; let's give her a minute to sit and acclimate to her surroundings."

"What surroundings?" Tirith asked from inside the box. By then, she'd already realized that they were talking about her, and like many outlanders they failed to realize how sensitive her race's sense of hearing was.

Light stung her eyes for a second time as the door was opened, and she had no idea how many hours had passed since the last. She reflexively hissed as she closed her eyes, and drew her knees up to her chest lest she feel the need to kick any target in self defense. But nobody came at first, and slowly yet surely her eyes began to adjust.

Just below her kicking range, the male dwarf she'd heard speak earlier hummed in approval. "Oh, she's fine, just a little disoriented. Her treatment has technically been started, and in an hour or so she'll be processed and at the dining hall." Without even asking her permission, the short man used Tirith's momentary confusion at his words to move into the box too closely for her to kick him, and unlocked her restraints. Her shoulders and back ached a bit from however many days she'd been in that position, and she just tried to brace herself as a stone bench and the back door of a wooden building came into view. A few humans and dwarves wearing matching white pants and vests stood around, all of them facing away from her but watching out of the corners of their eyes. "This way, lass," the older male dwarf inside the box with her requested in a surprisingly soft, polite tone as he took her by the hand to lead her out.

Grateful to finally be out in the open, Tirith accepted the health despite her discomfort and disorientation, and found herself dizzy. When her feet touched the grass she nearly lost her balance, and two humans braced her and helped her walk to the bench so she could sit. The stuff they'd given her to drink had obviously affected her sense of balance and clarity of thought, she realized.

"What's happening?" she asked, but to no avail as the dwarf whispered something to the other dwarves, finally in a voice low enough for her not to hear.

Just then, one of the people in white caught her eye, immediately increasing her sense of panic. The only female among the dozen or so others, what seemed to be a woman loomed at a height equal to Tirith's. Hooved clopped as the golden eyed woman moved to speak to some of the others, her pale blue horns clashing with her white hair. Neck tendrils spilled over the front of her vest, and memories of fighting the eredar during the Third War flashed through the ancient night elf warrior's mind. Yet there were members of the Alliance, all mingling with the woman as if nothing were amiss as the group all...closed in.

There were only split seconds for Tirith to take in her surroundings. They were in a fenced off area, and the horses pulling the wagon were being led out by someone she couldn't see. High walls blocked out the settlement itself but she could see the willow and cypress trees signifying that they had moved from the jungle into the marshland, confusing her even more.

She tried to ask more questions, but found herself dizzy and in need of bracing herself against the stone bench. The dwarven man radiated nothing but cheeriness as he gave hand directions to all the people in white, who continued to form a circle of ever decreasing size around Tirith. It was all happening so fast, and she didn't even have a chance to learn who they were or where she was.

Before she could even say anything, two of the workers moved in on her with the strait jacket.


	28. Unknown time in summer, year 26

_Indiscernible period of time, summer of year 26_

The rickety little chair felt cold even through her medical gown. The seat and backrest were made of some thick sort of plastic material, and the legs were of a very thin aluminum that felt like they would snap under her weight at any moment. The room itself was warm - all rooms in the ward were, given the climate - but the chair felt so cold and unstable. Even the linoleum floors seemed like they would peel and crack if someone scuffed a pair of shoes against the aged sheets hard enough. Not that any of the patients had shoes; slippers were the only articles of clothing allowed on the ward aside from undergarments and medical gowns. Safety reasons, apparently.

Paint peeled from the walls due to the humidity of the Swamp of Sorrows, giving the relatively new building a very old, run down flavor. Focusing on those walls was all Tirith could do as she tried not to be intimidated by yet another circle closing in on her. It had taken eight orderlies to hold her down while the psychiatrist had force fed her the pills just an hour earlier, and the drugs affected her judgment and perception of reality as always. Whenever the effect began to wear off over time, they'd just adjust her dosages and the specific poisons they were feeding her, ensuring that one of the more unruly patients in the ward and the only night elf, and thus one of the more potentially dangerous patients, would remain hampered.

By that time, it almost wasn't necessary. As much as Tirith told herself that the kangaroo court and the blame game sessions didn't bother her, a person could only deal with so much. And as the counsellors invaded her personal space even further and took up chairs around her in a diamond, she had to fight the urge to either fight or flee.

A middle aged human tutted her tongue at Tirith, gazing upon the retired warrior in disgust. "So many resources were spent trying to find you, Miss Nightshade," the woman began in a scolding tone. "So much money and time wasted, all so you could go on some irresponsible adventure in the woods. In the end, you just showed up at Nesingwary's camp anyway, battered by whatever man you'd shacked up with. What was the point? Why did you force everyone to look for you when you weren't even lost?"

A long silence ensued as the group of five people stared at Tirith angrily, a few of them even nodding their heads. A single dwarven guard wielding a nightstick stood watch at the door, staring at Tirith clinically as if he expected her to begin swinging at any moment. It was all a sham; she'd never hit any of her counsellors unless they threatened her directly or tried to force her mouth open or closed for the pills. It wasn't her that needed to be watched.

"Well?" the human female blurted out as if lecturing a spoiled child. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Defiance welled up inside Tirith despite her better judgment, and her sense of indignation at being spoken to in such a manner wasn't dampened even by the drugs they'd forced her to take a few hours before. This woman had never even seen her before; she had absolutely no right to hurl accusations that were so obviously the result of poor research.

"First of all," Tirith started in as polite a tone as she could muster, "I don't need to answer to another free citizen-"

"Answer the question that was asked to you, ma'am!" shouted a gnomish woman to Tirith's right.

No escalation preceded the shout, and Tirith felt her anger spike unnaturally at being spoken to in such a manner. "Well, _ma'am,_ that's exactly what I'm trying-"

"Answer the question!" the gnome shouted a second time. "Show some respect!"

Snorting and trying to calm her rapidly increasing pulse, Tirith tried to find a way to outsmart the two other women and their mind game. "I've been asked a few questions, so which one-"

This time, a human male from behind her interrupted. "You left a written note to a consular official in Stormwind that you would return to your post in two week's time after your initial fleeing from your parole, Miss Nightshade," he said in the most spiteful yet formal way possible, punctuating every word of his sentence as if every word was somehow important. "Do you honestly expect us to believe that you _didn't know_ that was a direct violation of your work release program? Do you think we're stupid?"

The gnomish woman opened her mouth to talk again, and Tirith felt her stubbornness push her to drown the small person out, preventing her from speaking her mind. "I don't even know you," the night elf replied.

"Answer the question!" the gnome shouted once more.

"We're your _counsellors,_ Miss Nightshade, why can't you understand that? When we bring up the fact that you knowingly jumped bail and then lied to a consular official, it's because we're trying to correct your self destructive behavior!"

"Okay, I didn't lie; I honestly didn't expect-"

"Answer the question!"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," piped up another gnome from behind Tirith. "You just said okay, but then claimed that you didn't lie; which one is it? Did you or did you not knowingly lie in your written and signed document to a consular official?"

"I didn't submit some sort of officially signed document-" Tirith's statement was punctuated by mocking laughter from the five counsellors. "-I just wrote a note to my roommate."

Another human from somewhere in the diamond of antagonistic counsellors gasped. "Roommate? Did you say roommate? You were cohabitating with an official at the consulate where you illegally worked under the table?" The others all gasped as well, and one of them began jotting down notes on a notepad with a human-designed emblem of a lumber mill in Darkshore on it.

"I wasn't working illegally, I was working as an independent-"

"-contractor? You were a contractor?" the first human assumed, growing red in the face as if furious over the revelation. "Your work release program mandated you to seek official employment; a contractor is self employed!"

"You mean she didn't even fulfill the requirements of her work release program?" the second gnome asked, ignoring Tirith entirely.

"No, you didn't let me finish my sentence-"

"Yes, that's apparently what happened! This person was breaking the law and gaming the system from day one!" the human sitting behind her huffed as if sincerely offended. "This sort of chronic outlawish behavior signifies a deep opposition to authority and a stunning lack of respect for duty and responsibility!"

Incensed, Tirith huffed right back at him, her night elven pride dented by the suggestion of such a nature coming from a man whose lifespan made him like an nematode compared to her. "Now, excuse me, I'll have you know-"

"You aren't here to teach anybody else, you deviant!" the little gnomish woman shouted.

Tirith's plan began to slip between her fingers as the rampant lack of professionalism of the supposed counseling specialists got under her skin. "Wait, what! Excuse me, but who do you think you are?" she snapped at the tiny person pointing a finger toward her rudely.

"We have written statements from several of your neighbors that you propositioned them," explained the last counselor, a gaunt, flat toned half elf. "And apparently you asked a psychiatric official out on a date."

"How awful!" sneered the middle aged human female.

"That's a bold faced lie-"

"That's a flagrant violation of the objectivity agreement you signed in full view of two Stormwind guards. You're an animal, Miss Nightshade, an uncontrollable animal that blatantly aided and abetted the Headcrusher tribe during a full scale assault."

That comment, in particular, hurt. Memories of the genocide committed at Xlatl rushed back into Tirith's mind, vying for control of her attention as she tried to repress the sounds of jungle troll children and infants screaming before being doused by napalm.

"Okay, listen," Tirith urked while gritting her molar teeth and pressing her fingertips to her temples. "There is so much wrong with what you just-"

"Okay? Did she actually say okay?" a voice from behind her that sounded human snidely remarked, as if mocking the supposed patient. "So you agree, then, that you viciously attacked one of your saviors in defense of a voodoo infested troll hive?"

"Hives are for silithids; I fought silithids and what you're saying demonstrates-"

"Answer the question!"

"-what you're saying demonstrates a stunning lack of-"

"She's making a mockery of any attempts to help save her from herself," the middle aged human huffed while crossing her arms dismissively.

"-understanding-"

"Miss Nightshade, I do believe that we've heard quite enough from your polemics," the half elf interrupted, waving his hand at her as if she were some hyperactive basket case. The thin man's features darkened and his voice began to echo as if it filled the entire room. "You aren't going to progress in terms of your lascivious lifestyle unless you confess to having sexually harassed your psychiatrist."

"No, no, that's a lie!" the ancient and still conservative night elf protested, her dignity insulted by the mere suggestion.

"You physically threatened your former commander when she rejected your false accusation of having stolen property from you!" accused a human from behind her seemingly at random.

"Marge stole my easel-"

"Even if she did somehow misplace it while cleaning up your messy bunk, you can't threaten other people physically for merely touching things!"

"I _did_ -"

"So she admits it - she threatened her former commander physically!" hissed the middle aged human.

"- _not_ threaten anybody!"

"Wait, you finally admit that you tried to attack your former commander?" the second gnome yelled from behind Tirith.

"No, I'm saying that I didn't-"

"You abandoned your post while at that camp three times, and got yourself kidnapped the third time!" shouted the first gnome so loudly that the skin of her face pulled tight against her skull enough to force her eyes closed.

"I didn't abandon-"

"You encouraged your former 'customers' to assault your psychiatrist and two Stormwind guards when they tried to inform you of a schedule change!" That last sentence was from the half elf, whose voice carried loudly over to Tirith's ears in an unnatural way, blaring at her and causing her to jump as his voice sounded as if it were coming from two feet in front of his mouth.

"Thats not true!"

The angry female gnome stood up in her chair, her arms almost seeming to elongate as they reached over the back rim of the backward chair for the small person to lean forward and better glare at Tirith. "You willingly lied under oath to an SI:7 agent about your involvement in the murder of a graduate of the mage academy!" the woman hissed in a voice that sounded more appropriate coming from a furbolg.

"About what! You're accusing me of lying about what?"

"Over a dozen people are **dead** because of your gross negligence, you truant!" the middle aged human woman hissed so acrimoniously that a vein popped out half an inch from her forehead, and the woman's left eye bulged in the socket.

"No! No, will not allow you to talk about me like-"

"You defrauded the lower district court in Stormwind of over ten thousand gold pieces throughout your illegal employment at the Kaldorei consulate!"

"For ten thousand years, I never once missed-"

"Ten thousand! Did she say ten thousand!" a human voice bellowed from behind her, once again causing Tirith to jump in fear, and the entire diamond hissed at her as if warning her not to move. "This woman is delusional! What s ridiculous statement!"

"I am thirteen thousand years old!"

More laughter rang out, though this time it was also tempered by shouts of anger. "You're trying to make a joke of this session!" yelled a counselor whose features were indeterminable due to all the shadows on his face, and Tirith spun her head around as she tried to find who had pulled the curtains over the window.

"N-no, I'm not-"

Before she could find the reason for the rapidly dimming lights, she found herself faced by the older human again, the woman's veins all pulsating in her enraged face. "You've been writing on the wall in your cell like a madwoman, just plain gibberish from your mind!" the human practically screamed with an uncannily wide open mouth like some sort of snake, and Tirith shivered at all the air being blown onto her face by the woman's yelling. "You're possessed!"

"That's Darnassian, that's my-"

"You stole an entire second meal from the dining hall yesterday, Tirith!" The half elf's voice bounced all over the room and sounded like it came from every direction at once, yet she could no longer see where the walls were due to a darkness that her nocturnal eyes couldn't penetrate. The noise hurt her ears and Tirith struggled to cover them, but somehow the booming sound found her. "You don't deserve the privileges you've been granted!"

"I-I don't have any!"

The angry gnome stretched her hand out to point her finger right in Tirith's face, reaching a distance even greater than her own height as Tirith fidgeted to avoid the horrific looking limb. "Your commander disappeared looking for you just after you were found. We know you had something to do with it!"

"No! No, I swear!"

"Confess!"

"No!"

A human from behind her, heretofore unseen, leaned over Tirith then, scaring her even more as his uniformed body hung like a gigantic swaying leaf. No matter which direction she leaned in her chair, she couldn't avoid him, as if he came from every direction, and all she could do was scoot downward in her chair to avoid the blank face. "That mage from your camp accompanied you two separate times, and she died the second time. It is **not possible** for that to be a coincidence." Even when she couldn't see any details of the face staring right at her - she couldn't recall if there was a nose or a mouth - she could still sense a contortion of disgust written all over it. "Confess!" the man bellowed, causing a sharp pain in Tirith's back muscles.

She tried to open her mouth to protest, but found her voice had withered away from anxiety. Tirith's heart pounded so hard that her pulse echoed as the blood vessels in her ears pumped, drowning out the sound of her own speech. Seizing on the opportunity, a gnome that was also behind her popped up into her view like a demonic little imp, his almost comically oversized head elongating at his round, fleshy nose pointed toward her and caused her to sink even more. "You were kidnapped by the Headcrushers only to attack your saviors when they exterminated the infestation. You sold yourself to the enemy just like you sold yourself to the neighbors - you gave up all your honor and dignity for _money_!" the little man screeched so piercingly that Tirith closed her eyes, no longer able to hide her fright. "CONFESS!"

"You just **let** those guild members die, just like you **tried to kill** the people who saved you from the mongrel hive!" the middle aged human female howled at her using two simultaneous voices. The woman rose like a demonic monolith into the sky, blotting out Tirith's view as the rest of the counsellors formed an arrangement of standing stones around her. "CONFESS!"

Tirith tried to stand up for herself, tried to defend her honor, but she found her voice box unable to produce sound. Even if she could have, her tormentors had already overwhelmed her long before; she was just the last person to realize it. Their screams hurt her ears as they hung over her, driving her further into the floor as the linoleum covered floorboards sagged beneath her weight. Their features grew more distorted and grotesque as they hurled accusation after accusation at her, never giving her enough time to answer. Her head buzzed from the medication they'd shoved down her throat with a tube before the session, and when their forms began to elongate and grow taller, she lost her sense of depth perception. The ceiling was closed off to her as their ferocious, vicious screams pushed her into the creaking, mildew stained floorboards, no longer concerned with even checking to see if she'd heard their accusations as they did their best to intimidate, browbeat and wear her down.

"CONFESS!"

"No!"

"CONFESS!"

"CONFESS!"

"CONFESS!"

"Nooo! Leave me alone!"

"CONFESS!"

"CONFESS!"

" **Elune, help me**!"

"CONFESS!"

"CONFESS!"

"CONFESS!"

The floor gave way as the moldy boards cracked, sending Tirith into a weightless plummet as the counsellors continued to shout her down. Like a rag doll, she fell with absolutely no control over her limbs as she spun in every direction, dropping into the darkness as a chorus of hateful voices slandered her good name in every way possible. Lost and unable to stand, the nervous breakdown stabbed into her every extremity, burning her until she turned brittle and disintegrated into purple and blue dust, dissipating into a worthless nothing inside the bottomless pit she'd been cast into. Pulled apart and shoved back together, she found herself dismantled and deconstructed as they forced her to understand that whenever they decided to rip her apart piece by piece again, she would be powerless to stop them, every single time.

The world died away, providing only a temporary respite as even the dissolution of her particles disappeared. Only the warm, dank sensation between the tops of her legs grounded her to reality, and she began to regain her vision just like in the wagon so many months ago. The sound of footsteps bounced off of the other side of a wall, and movement by the door's peephole reassured her that whatever they'd done to her, they at least had the common decency to dump her body on the damp mattress she had to sleep on inside of her padded cell. The dizziness didn't completely subside, but eventually it decreased just enough for her to feel safe standing. Only when she moved to do so and stretch out did she realize that the warm, dank sensation was due to the fact that she'd wet herself during her deconstruction at the mockery of a group psychotherapy session.

Her hands still shaking and full of anxiety even after hours of unconsciousness, Tirith pulled her medical gown away from the front of her body to avoid contact with her underwear. There were only minimal urine stains, and she was easily able to work them out by hand and using a bit of the jug of stagnant water they'd left for her. The adult diaper they'd foisted upon her was another issue entirely. It technically made cleaning up after an incident of urination even easier, but was humiliating all the same. As she'd come to suspect, the few other sane patients at the ward suspected that it was another attempt at mind control. Crumpling it up and tossing it in a corner, she washed herself and then drank the water that remained in the jug. Clocks weren't allowed inside the ward, and since there were no windows on that end of the building, she had no means of knowing the time or when they'd come for her. Having no reading material or any objects to occupy her time - they weren't even allowed their own toilets - there wasn't much to do but try in vain to work out the residual panic in her system by stretching.

By the time the knock came at her door, hunger had begun to nip at her heels and she found herself desperate to exit the cell. The orderly who had been sent to fetch her, the female draenei who was polite but never made eye contact, unceremoniously picked up the soiled diaper with a pair of tongs and offered Tirith a fresh pair of panties, but didn't grant her the dignity of privacy while she put them on. A new pair of slippers was given to her and she found herself led down the hall as the armed dwarven guard trailed behind her; technically one of her 'privileges' since in the beginning her arms were restrained in a straitjacket every second that she was allowed outside her cell. Before long, she found herself prodded into a meeting room down several long hallways that she still hadn't learned to navigate on her own after all that time. And even before the door had been swung all the way open for her, she could hear the second most hateable voice known to her rejoicing at some sort of diabolical news.

"Yes...yes, this report is excellent," drawled the familiar voice of Doctor Finklesnap, obviously on some sort of business trip since this was the first time she'd ever seen him at the facility there in the Harborage. "Splendid, you've all made great progress here."

The draenei guard nodded politely and guided Tirith over to a chair where she was to sit. The tall blue woman was technically nice, but her demonic appearance and complicity in the sham of a mental hospital caused Tirith to very seriously consider biting a bloody chunk out of the woman's sensitive neck tendrils. Of course, she couldn't actually do that, as it would only confirm all the accusations made by the abusive counsellors.

Sitting as she was told, Tirith stared at her own berobed knees, knowing better than to meet the triumphant gaze of the psychotic little psychiatrist standing on top of the desk. Finklesnap spent quite a bit of time looking over pages and pages of reports that had been compiled during all the cruel tests Tirith had been subjected to over the past few months, likely all a part of his doing. Eventually he regarded her with about as much respect as he would a lab rat, albeit a lab rat that had yielded positive results.

Taking a seat in a high chair like always, Finklesnap looked at her with as little malice as was likely possible for such an evil person. "Over the long term, it seems that the electroshock therapy has done wonders for you, hasn't it?" Tirith couldn't quite tell if he was being sarcastic or not. Whereas a year ago she would have been defiant and combative, at that time she just continued to stare down as her ears drooped. "Yes, there's been a definite attitude adjustment. Apparently...hmm, what's this? You were in a group therapy session yesterday?"

Tirith winced but didn't respond; by then, she'd learned that just about anything she could say had the potential to incriminate her later. The mind games had gone on like that for months, unabated, and all without Finklesnap's presence. Now that he was there, she feared what else he might do.

After a few seconds, the draenei orderly - who had remained standing next to the door - spoke up. "Yesterday morning," the demonic looking woman replied in a very pleasant sounding voice. Normally the clash would have been noted by the fatigued night elf sitting in the chair, but Tirith's surprise at how much time had passed since the latest horrible experience.

"Ah yes, right. Thank you. So anyway, it says here that you lashed out at your counsellors and even spat on one of them? Well, that really doesn't seem to indicate that your progress has been continuous. We're trying to _help_ you, Tirith, don't you understand? So much time, money and effort have been expended on your treatment by the state and the facility; it really seems _unfair_ that you reject their attempts at every turn." Sighing dramatically and folding his arms behind his back, the gnomish doctor played up his sense of indignant offense as he turned his nose up. "The only solution I can see, in order to both save you from yourself and ensure that our time isn't wasted, is to restart your electroshock therapy sessions at double the frequency-"

" _ **NO**_!"

With no escalation or warning, Tirith's heart jumped into her throat and forced her to speak upon hearing the news. Already, her hands began to shake even though she wasn't under the influence of the drugs they'd been force feeding her for so long. Leaning forward and placing her hands on the desk in a posture just short of begging, the ancient night elf looked up at the relatively young gnome in an attempt to plea.

"Uh, excuse me, patient, but please keep a respectful distance from the staff at all times," the demonic and ironic (in Tirith's eyes) member of the Alliance from behind her.

"Not necessary, Traska, but thank you. I do believe that Miss Nightshade is no longer a threat to anybody but herself," Finklesnap said in a way that wounded Tirith's pride due to both his candor and the fact that he was at least half correct. "Now, Tirith, please be mature about this. We're committed to rescuing you, but the state's resources aren't infinite. And as you know, of course, you've already costed several officials quite a bit of _money_." When his features darkened at the last part of his sentence, she knew that it was totally natural this time.

"No, no, no, no, Doctor, you can't do this!"

"Oh, but I can. My name is on the patent for the electroshock technology developed with the help of the crystal technology brought by the good people of this settlement. The government has given me full leeway to assign the treatment to anyone I wish."

All pretense lost and all dignity pushed to the side, Tirith found no recourse but to throw herself at his feet. After so much time, amounts considered immeasurable by people from other races, she'd been defeated. Looking up at a person she despised as much as Marge with saucer eyes that she didn't fake, she finally lowered herself to the point of begging as she just shook her weary head at him.

First, the Burning Legion had come, robbing her of all her family and destroying the civilization she once knew, but Tirith had survived.

Next, the Sundering ripped the world in half and sank most of it beneath the sea, killing ninety percent of the Kaldorei in the ensuing floods, earthquakes and tsunamis as the First Well of Eternity imploded, but Tirith had survived.

Then, the satyrs rallied the remnants of the demon army and tried to launch a sneak attack while her people were still making the transition to a nature based society, but Tirith had survived.

After that, the highborne unleashed their mana storms on the sacred forest, decimated hundreds of miles of land and once again threatening the world, but Tirith had survived.

As if the cosmos hadn't tested her enough, the silithids invaded the world, blocking out the moons with their swarms and even devastating the dragonflights, but Tirith had survived.

The Legion invaded a second time, the orcs and humans ravaged her people's holy land, their immortality was brought to an end, their society and culture was torn apart, the world was being assaulted by the Scourge, and then she'd been thrown into a lawless jungle full of monsters, many of whom were members of her new faction, but Tirith had survived.

And there she sat, broken and beaten down, begging for mercy from a two foot tall gnome with a pointy goatee. After all those more serious threats had failed to end Tirith Nightshade, she found herself helpless against the horrors of what the mental hospital staff were inflicting upon her.

"Doctor, please..."

"Please what?" he asked, holding his hand to his ear and cocking up one eyebrow passive aggressively.

"Please...don't make me do the shocks again," Tirith whispered, too embarrassed to speak louder as her voice cracked as if she had a cold.

For a few seconds the little psychiatrist continued to give her a hard, unsympathetic look, measuring her in some way that she could no longer gauge in her state. Eventually he looked to the orderly and motioned for the woman to step outside. "It's alright, Traska; there's no danger here," the doctor said politely as the orderly nodded and stepped out into the hallway, though only Tirith knew the tiny man well enough to notice the victorious sneer at the corner of his mouth. Once they were alone, he walked across the table and looked down at her, completely unafraid of the former warrior sitting before him.

"Twenty one weeks." His gaze held about as much spite and acrimony that could be written into such a small face, and he showed no intention of giving up on the staring contest he'd initiated.

Far too distressed by the poor treatment she'd received, the night elf whose breadth of life experience was many times that of the gnome relented quickly, no longer possessing the willpower for such mind games. "I don't understand," she replied, showing him through her distraught eyes that they'd already drugged, starved and electrocuted the fight out of her.

Inhaling deep in displeasure, she stared at her as if she were a fool. "For twenty one weeks, you evaded capture. That's almost half a year. For twenty one sessions, I was forced by the court to keep your appointment slots open but not get paid for my time." His voice dropped in volume and, despite the tiny size of his vocal chords, even in pitch. "And now for _over_ half a year, you've been consuming resources here for your treatment. Oh, don't get me wrong - the experiments we received legal permission to subject you to yielded valuable research results, but that's run its course; nobody needs you anymore. Nobody wants you. You're nothing but a burden of which the state can't rid itself. So," he sighed while waving his hand in a gesture which bore an unclear meaning, "I'm going to give you a choice. I'm not obligated to do so, and I'm not particularly inclined to do so, but to be frank I don't have much time to spend here - the developments we've made in the technology here require my presence elsewhere." he continued staring her down coldly as if expecting a response.

"Thank you for giving me the choice," Tirith mumbled, ignoring the disgust that uttering the sentence made her feel at herself.

"That's the spirit. So, this is how I'm going to put it to you. I can just sign an order to resume your electroshock therapy for another three months in addition to more intense group therapy sessions, walk out of here right now and only need to return to check your progress once the quarter is over. Or..." His voice trailed off suggestively, and he snapped his fingers at a door leading to another room, and she could hear multiple pairs of small feet stirring. "You sign over what you have left as a trust fund to the facility and our research group as a legal and demonstrable show of gratitude, and an acknowledgement that you intend to reside at our facility here per the retirement home policy."

Tirith felt lower than low. Sinking into her chair and letting her ears droop almost lower than her chin, she sought deep down to find a spark, any sort of defiance that might still exist inside of her, but found nothing. Disappointing herself, she subtly accepted that the offer was palatable by entertaining it.

"But I don't have anything left," she replied in legitimate confusion. "Everything has been taken from me."

"No, not everything," Finklesnap said rather aggressively as he shook his head at her in anger. "Your pension. You served as a member of the Stormwind army due to a loan from Darnassus. You have two separate pensions, albeit small ones, as well as a stipend from the state due to your mental illness. That is, unless you sign them over."

Giving her no time to think or truly decide, the side door swung open, revealing the cheery looking dwarven orderly who never spoke to Tirith directly as well as several more people. Mostly gnomes but also a few humans, the group of at least half a dozen people all wore matching grey outfits along with matching black briefcases they all held in their hands. All of them looked the same to her, even if their features might have been slightly different. They all walked the same and talked the same, and there was a hollow look in the eyes of each one of them.

The first one, another gnome, walked forward at Finklesnap's prompting and shoved a clipboard right up in Tirith's face. This time when most of her view was blocked out, she knew it wasn't simply a hallucination. Letters in Common that were far too small for anybody to reasonably read and understand filled the page along with numbered bullet points and jargon she'd never seen before.

"Whereas inheritance statute number six three four eight B refers to the bequeathing of estates prematurely, whereas royal decree code triangle blue D C three enshrines the definition of pensions as an estate in the law, whereas you, the undersigned, consign your estate into the custody of the Shady Oaks Special Care Home, then it shall be so that all rights thereof have been proscribed."

Furrowing her long eyebrows at the crusty, almost desiccated looking man, Tirith struggled to comprehend what was going on. "But...wait, what is this-"

"Sign here, please?" he asked more than ordered, shoving the clipboard even closer to her face.

Over the rim of the forms, she could see Doctor Finklesnap staring her down again, along with the cheery dwarf who appeared to think that everything in life was all positive all the time. Pressure mounted on her shoulders from an unseen, intangible source as all eyes fell on her, waiting for her decision.

With a trembling hand, she gripped the pen that someone else had thrust at her, scribbling a chicken scratch signature on the line in question, feeling a small part of her soul torn away from her as she gave in.

"Okay...okay-"

"Would you sign here?" asked a human, shoving another clipboard in her face as soon as the first grey suit wandered away.

At first Tirith tried to read what she was being asked to sign, but at an impatient sigh from Finklesnap, she just signed without reading for fear that he'd follow through on his previous threat. No sooner than she had done so when a third was shoved up in front of her face.

"Would you sign here?"

One after the other, the grey suits continued their subdued onslaught as Tirith signed away what little she still had in the world. Everyone stepped forward for their turn to grab a piece of the suppressed night elf and tear off their own, taking and taking until there was nothing left of her. When it was all said and done, Finklesnap had already left, granting her no opportunity to even shoot him a dirty look once he'd already signed the order to release her from the ward for the criminally insane. Denied any sort of retribution against the viper omniscient, she soon found herself alone as the grey suits had already received what they wanted.

Stepping forward, the draenei orderly took Tirith by the arm without even asking permission first, and the two dwarves - one cheery and one stone faced - led them out into the hallway. Since she had nothing of her own - even the slippers she wore were general issue jumbo sized ones that were sterilized every week and then redistributed - there was no need to return to her old padded cell. Leaving that wing of the facility for the last time, she had a few precious moments outside as they crossed a paved sidewalk covered from the winter rains by an awning that lead to another building in the walled facility. Green met her eyes for the first time in half a year, moving her to tears as she was led wordlessly to a building she'd never entered before. Far too soon, her view of the cypress trees was cut off as they entered the lower security building, trapping her inside of stone walls again albeit ones that weren't covered in fluid smears from the less stable patients.

Down hallways that all looked the same to her, she passed unattended patients wearing plain uniforms rather than medical gowns, noticing that a few people were reading outdated gazettes and encyclopedias and even carrying personal items. Dumbstruck by the freedom, Tirith could only gaze around in awe as she was led to another tiny personal room, also bearing a padlock but constructed of wood and possessing a large window.

The door opened, and she was met by a scene that looked palatial to her by then. Normal walls including a few empty picture frames were inside, along with her own personal chamber pot, a few shelves and...a real bed.

Unable to speak, she only stared at the amenities while the cheery dwarf explained. "So this will be your new room here in the retirement ward. We'll have a power pot in here by the evening time. Supper is in the dining hall at seven o'clock sharp, and we have some clothes your size inside the drawers over there. Traska will take that old medical gown from you when you're finished." The two men started to leave, though the cheery dwarf looked back over his shoulder just as he disappeared forever. "Think happy thoughts!"

Alone, the two women stared at each other for a moment. The draenei was uneasy at first, never having been on her own with Tirith in a ward where there weren't armed guards waiting at every corner. Her apprehension was misplaced, Tirith mused to herself darkly as she watched the draenei back up a step.

"Thank you, but I just need a minute," she requested quietly, almost shy to ask for things from a staff that had been so unfeeling toward her up until then.

Thankfully, the draenei couldn't have been happier to get out of the isolated room with a woman who had earned a reputation as the most physically dangerous former patient back at the special care ward, and she clopped her little hooves right out of there and - to Tirith's utter shock - even shut the door behind her as if there was no risk at all.

At first, Tirith couldn't even move. Because she hadn't been drugged in at least a day, her mind felt relatively clear and she was able to finally find the peace and quiet to try and reflect on where she ended up.

But she was unable. Too many memories, too many experiences, too much of everything. For thirteen thousand years she had walked on that planet, facing threats both physical and emotional as she always found herself a person struggling to survive. Whether it be the verbal barbs her mother had pelted her with daily in Suramar so long ago or the literal barbs shot at her and her shield sisters by satyrs and the various furbolg and tauren tribes who constantly switched loyalties during the Long Vigil, Tirith's whole life had been a fight for survival. Every day, every minute, she found herself propelling through life as she faced whatever came her way, and the past few years since her people had become mortal again were no different. Tigers and tribal scouts and mortars and - now - electrocution had all failed to stop her.

And so what now? Tirith was, in a way, free. Finklesnap had what he wanted both in terms of money and research data and had moved on. Tirith had no financial or legal connections to anybody on the outside, and the few people who still remembered her hadn't contacted her after all this time at the facility; it seemed impossible that they'd forget her when she'd only fled Stormwind a year ago, and thus it seemed more plausible that they didn't even know where she was.

Khadijah and Jaqulina would keep an eye out for her, but they wouldn't scour the globe. Silviel might, but the woman could only do so much. Soraya had apparently filed the missing persons report that Marge had gotten a hold of, and would likely see her job as done. And, perhaps most painfully of all, Oacaxo was either dead or had been left for dead by whatever Alliance group had first found Tirith's body, healed her and out her in the back of that wagon. Nobody would or could find her, but they would eventually move on if they were still alive.

No connections. No debts. No enemies. No responsibilities. Just s facility that, from what she understood, would grant her room and board free of charge until she finally died of old age like the other night elves of her generation.

Relief: because after thirteen thousand years, she could finally stop running. And she was so tired...so very tired.

Despair: because once she was no longer fighting to survive, there was nobody else to fight with her, or be with her at all.

Misery: because her freedom only extended to the outer walls of the retirement facility; she was not allowed to set one foot beyond the property line.

Guilt: because as much as she wished to know what happened to everyone - the women of Serenity, the employees at the Kaldorei consulate, her former colleagues at Camp Freedom, and all the people who had touched her heart - she also realized that they were better off living their lives not worrying about her.

Acceptance: because no matter what Tirith ever did, it wouldn't change the fact that her world was now just a white walled building that smelled like sterilized medical bandages and a small yard with a view of the high cypress trees out in the Swamp of Sorrows.

And so Tirith sat there on the edge of the bed as her eyes teared up a little while longer, because it was all she could do. For all the love, all the hate, all the joy, all the pain, for everything that she had felt over her incredible, grueling, exciting, difficult and worthwhile life, and for the fact that whether she admitted it or not, her life was now over. And for the sake of the last decade or two or three or two and a half or however much time she had left before a natural death, Tirith finally let so much repressed emotions well up to the surface. In celebration, lamentation and sincere thanks for the long life she'd been given, she hung her head and cried.


	29. May 7, year 28

_May 7, year 28_

The air was relatively still in the visitation room, but it smelled fresh all the same. White walls made from plaster and a light blue floor made from rubber combined to add to the cleanliness that Tirith had once viewed as sterility. Even the orderlies held a pleasant enough demeanor to evoke thoughts of butlers or a concierge rather than guards at a medical facility. The fact that the residents and visitors alike didn't need to be reminded to use indoor voices added to the serene quality of the room; it was as calm a place as could be found.

Tirith sat back in her chair and drank her watered down tea slowly while she waited for the draenei child across the table to finish sorting out all the papers she'd written. The girl had been born on Draenor, apparently, and had survived a horrible crash landing on the planet via some sort of boat that sailed through the stars. Always amused by the stories of such people, Tirith often tried to imagine what being in space would look like whenever the locals at the Harborage described the experience. The girl's mother looked as far off and dreamy as Tirith, resting her chin on her hand as she played with her daughter's auburn hair. The girl didn't seem to mind, focusing instead on the assignment papers for a level of local schooling far above her young age. Typical overachiever, Tirith surmised as she resisted the urge to reach out and stroke the cheek of someone else's daughter. So calm were the surroundings that she still had to remind herself, at times, that she was a ward of the state in custody and that the locals knew that; they'd all be relaxed until she took any actions they didn't expect.

After having resorted her papers, the girl tilted her chin up to inspect the stack in her hands like a little professional woman. "I think those were all my questions, Miss Nightshade," the draenei girl said in Common in a completely unaccented voice, and Tirith guessed that the girl might not actually be fluent in her people's native language. "The War of the Shifting Sands sounds like a scary time." She finally looked up at the night elf politely, wide eyed and in awe as if she'd spoken to a living, walking, breathing library.

"I suppose it was, though we didn't think of it that way at the time; one tends only to realize the full depth of such ordeals after the fact," Tirith replied softly after sipping more of her lukewarm tea. At first Tirith considered flipping the conversation back on the little girl and complimenting her on her bravery for having survived the crash of the Exodar, but thought better of it when she imagined that the girl's mother might find it to be an invasion of their family's privacy; as demonic as they looked, Tirith did notice that their peoples had a number of behaviors and attitudes in common. "Do you have all the information you need for your school project, then?"

"Oh, yes, Miss Nightshade. I don't think anybody will be able to give as authentic a presentation as mind!"

The girl's enthusiasm caused both adults to smile, as well as her mature demeanor and the way it clashed with her diminutive stature as she gathered up her stationery to leave. The trio remained quiet for a few more moments after their meeting had come to an end, none of them quite wanting to leave already. On Tirith's end, visits from strangers were always a joyous and welcome occasion, and she tended to remember the names and faces even after only one meeting. On the draenei family's end, they'd had a conversation they found fascinating plus they learned that the residents of the facility weren't scary people after all. Eventually, the timer ran out and a pleasant human orderly, a younger woman who had been transferred in from another facility in the Wetlands, approached their table.

"Thank you so much for your visit to the Shady Oaks Special Care Home, miss. I do believe it's time for Miss Nightshade's afternoon rest time."

The draenei mother looked over at the gnomish clock on the wall. "I suppose it is. We have all of our belongings gathered already, too." The woman turned to the night elf they'd been interviewing, looking relieved that the meeting had gone so well after all. "Miss Nightshade, really, thank you so much. I appreciate the help you've given Tammie, here - presentations mean a lot to her."

"It's no trouble at all. If she ever needs to interview someone for a project again, then don't hesitate to stop by." Tirith stood up and so did the mother and daughter. "And Tammie, you're going to do great in your history class, I just know it."

"Thanks Miss Nightshade!" the little draenei girl chirped as the human orderly led the family into a hallway leading to an exit.

The entire visit had lasted just over an hour, and the goodbye had lasted less than a minute, but Tirith would remember it for quite a long time. Surprise visits from strangers tended to make her day, and she even excused herself from one of her regular chess matches with a high elven veteran of the Scourge invasion in order to accommodate the family. The Queldorei didn't mind; neither of them knew each other's names and they were very informal; the match could always be picked up later. Once the draenei family was out of view, Tirith grinned wide, knowing that her mind would be occupied thinking about the curious girl's numerous questions for the next few days.

Behind her, there stood no more orderlies watching her every move or ordering her where to go. Free to roam as long as they didn't quarrel with other residents, the retirees and other people in need of care were granted a large amount of self determination, and that trust caused most of them in the retirement ward to behave accordingly. It was a world of difference from the high security ward for the criminally insane that Tirith had initially resided in; indeed, her half a year of experience there was almost forgotten after more than two years in the low security ward of the facility. Walking unaccompanied through the halls, Tirith took her time, quite literally stopping to smell the roses that had been planted in vases in the hallways and gazing out of every window that she passed, even the ones that were only facing the outer walls of the facility rather than the swampy forest outside. And when she _did_ pass windows that granted her a view of the forest, she stopped for a great deal of time to admire the greenery. For logistical reasons, they were only allowed outside for half an hour every day, though Tirith savored those times as well.

Moving on toward the dining hall, her mind drifted to her hunger for lunch - it would be dinner for the other residents, but as the only night elf in the ward, Tirith was allowed an exception to the sleep schedule due to her nocturnal nature, and didn't have to wake up until almost noon time. Rather than serving the same dishes every week, the cooks would actually randomize the food they prepared in the low security ward, giving a small surprise to the residents every day when they dropped by to eat. Inside the hall, there was a sign in sheet that was used, on average, by two or three people a day; the retirement ward functioned on the honor system to ensure that nobody took extra meals, and so lax was the security that most of the time everyone walked in once for each meal and were never bothered to sign in. In fact, there was little to denote the regular existence of any of them. The former heroines, adventurers and champions who comprised the majority of the retirees lived in a contained world of their own, taken care of by the state and largely invisible to anyone but themselves and what few visitors they had. Not signing in, Tirith entered the hall, ate steamed cabbage next to a forgetful gnoll who claimed that she had served as a mercenary in fifteen different companies before her gnollbabies committed her to the ward, and promptly sat by the window in the common area, admiring the view behind the facility.

Just beyond the back wall of Shady Oaks, the high hills that were almost small mountains rimming the Harborage broke apart just enough to provide a view of the dense marshland woods beyond. The high cypress trees weren't quite as tall as the temperate pines of Ashenvale or the tropical Giants in Stranglethorn and Feralas, but they were beautiful in their own way. The long, limp branches of those cypress trees swayed in the light breeze, inviting her to run through them like she once did.

Her long, sensitive ears pricked up at the sound of the clean shoes of an orderly approaching.

"Miss Nightshade, you have another visitor," the older dwarven matron said quietly from behind Tirith. Her chair was facing the window and the back wall, away from the other residents in the common area, but she could vaguely see the reflection of the orderly in the glass.

The night elf smiled pleasantly, chuckling deep inside her throat. "Two in one day? That's a first. I guess you can call me the most wanted woman in town."

"I honestly think you're right," the dwarf chortled in response. "It's unplanned, obviously, but the visitor insists that they know you personally. A priestess named Khadijah Narume?"

For the first time in a long time, Tirith's heart pounded in excitement. "Oh...oh my! Yes, I do know her! How did she...please, do send her in!"

"Yes, just one minute." The orderly walked away until her reflection became indiscernible against the glare of the late afternoon sun, disappearing among the willow trees on the other side for a few minutes.

Eventually, another figure began to increase in size from behind her, and Tirith felt her heart thumping excitedly as the dark figure of a familiar small human drew nearer. Unable to contain herself, she stood up and turned around, faced with the diminutive human she'd first met five years prior.

The two of them hugged, and Khadijah even let out a little laugh despite her uncharacteristically subdued demeanor. She wore the official off duty robes of a healer used by higher ranking members of the Alliance military, and seemed to have done rather well for herself. After an obligatory round of welcomes and inquiries about health, the two of them sat down and looked each other over again.

"Look at you! It seems that they're sending you all over the place, by the look of your uniform," Tirith said while pulling another chair over for Khadijah to sit.

"You're telling me. It seems that one thing the world always finds in short supply is a healer." Once settled, the two of them smiled, though Khadijah appeared to be partially distracted. "You look good, Tirith."

"Flattery will get you everywhere," the night elf laughed out loud. When the moment of introduction had passed, the two of them paused for a moment, finding the elekk in the room impossible to ignore. "How did you find me?"

"Remember our conversation in Stormwind, just over...three years ago, I think it was?"

"In Soraya's apartment? Yes, I believe I do. You have your ways...and if six months isn't a short amount of time to spend finding somebody, I suppose that three years is even less...short?"

"That's the right term, I believe. And trust me, you were much more difficult to find this time, otherwise I would have visited sooner."

"I'm honestly thrilled that you came, early or late or whatever." Tirith looked around, noticing that there were no orderlies around and only four other residents in the common area at that specific time. "I know somebody in the dining hall...would you like me to ask for a cup of tea for you? Maybe coffee?"

"I'm full, actually; it was a long trip out here and I had to stop and eat on the way. But more than that, I'm interested in knowing how you've been; drinks and snacks can wait."

"Ah. You want to know what I've been up to for the past few years."

Khadijah continued to smile, but there was a measure of force behind it, and Tirith surmised that if humans had normal sized ears, Khadijah's would be drooping. "It took me...literally years of snooping, but I found your patient file. What they wrote about you...I just find it hard to believe. They have your signatures, but then again, I know they had your signatures swearing that no massacres took place at the hands of the government, which I know is a lie. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if part of what you've incurred is retribution, or intimidation to ensure that you stay quiet."

Breathing deep as she looked away, Tirith opened up a box she'd left closed in the back of her mind almost since the first day at the retirement ward when she'd broken down. Never had that box been opened again, and the moment she changed out of that old medical gown into her retirement ward uniform, she had resigned herself to leaving those memories to be forgotten.

"What's there to say, Khadijah? I wound up here, and to this very day, the circumstances under which I was found are classified. I jumped bail - that part is true, and I'm sure it was mentioned in the file."

"Yes. I had a feeling that at least that part was true..."

"I tried to live my life away from the government and by my own rules. And..." Tirith looked around one last time. Khadijah was bonded sworn to secrecy; anything told to her was confidential, but the night elf just wanted to be sure that nobody was eavesdropping first. "Marge found me. Apparently, I was a missing person on the lamb. We fought; she died. I was shot during the fight and passed out, but woke up here. They put me into the high security ward for the criminally insane and forced me to undergo experimental treatment that was completely abusive and horrendous, and stopped the moment I agreed to sign over both of my pensions, which were all I had left. And now, I have this," Tirith explained, sweeping her hands around the much nicer and rather pleasant retirement ward. "My room and board is covered by the state in return for the donation of my pensions to the facility and its affiliates, so I never worry about being taken care of. This place is safe, well run and the new staff members are nice. Even the management at the other side, the high security side, has been changed since I left, and most of the staff is rotated in and out between this and other facilities. None of the people I dealt with when I first arrived and switched are still here, so it's almost like a clean slate.

"So...that's the short version of what happened. I'd rather not dwell on the first half a year or so that I spent here. I'm on this side, they treat me with respect and leave me alone, and it's a fine place to live out the rest of my life."

Familiarity found its way between them, and Tirith recognized an expression on Khadijah's face that the human had given her the last time they'd met. Friendship mode was switched off and Khadijah went into counselor mode again. Unlike the other so called counsellors Tirith had spoken to, Khadijah actually knew what she was doing.

"And that's how you define the time you have...the rest of your life?" the human asked plainly. The question was polite but very direct.

Looking out the window again, Tirith obliged her counselor friend's request. The tropic was one that she no longer considered simply because she considered it out of her own hands. But for someone she knew as well as Khadijah, she could make an exception. "My people are mortal now, just like yours; you're used to it because it's all you know. We never thought that we would die, though, and it's a difficult concept to accept. And recently, we received word that Shalasyr, one of the notables in our society long ago, died a natural death stemming from her age. The older individuals among us all feel it. Maybe I have a few decades left, but I know it's coming; I feel it even down in my very bones."

"And so you're comfortable just living alone and waiting for the end?"

Tirith closed her eyes and worked to control her breathing. As much as she admired Khadijah, the conversation was wearing on her and on the beautiful, happy world of bliss that she'd worked to build for herself there in the retirement home. "That isn't something I enjoy thinking about, Khadijah. Dying isn't fun, especially when you don't have anyone close. I'm taken care of here; my needs are met. Every so often, local children come by to interview me for school or out of simply curiosity. Everybody wants to hear from the thirteen thousand year old elf, you know? So I pass on whatever knowledge I can to whoever needs it. It's the best many of my kind can hope for; we're from a different era, and we don't fit in this new world."

"You don't even care to ask if you can leave this place?"

Finally, Tirith met the human's gaze again, having prepared herself for a somewhat hard edged answer. What she saw in Khadijah's eyes gave her pause, however. No matter how professional the human was, she was still a young, emotional creature, and her eyes looked glassy even though her breathing was even. She appeared even more emotional about the situation than Tirith was, and the care she was displaying caused the night elf to temper her words.

"Khadijah...where am I going to go? We had this conversation before, and I have even less options now than I did then. For sure, I burned my bridge with Soraya after I bailed on the job she arranged for me, and I would only be a burden on the family of my former shield sister that offered to take me in. I have everything I need here, and I'm not a source of strain on anybody."

"What about being free?" Khadijah asked, her voice even but her speed of talking somewhat fast for her. "You told me once that a good friend told you that life is its own purpose, to wake up every day and be free to make your own decisions."

"I am free here," Tirith replied in a flat, dry tone, attempting to dodge the topic entirely as she folded her arms and stared at her lap.

"Tirith...how can you say that? Your needs are met but your entire world is contained in a single building. You took such a big risk in order to escape control and restraint...you did it for a period of time. If Marge hadn't found you, you'd still be there now-"

"I took a risk and I failed," Tirith replied, trying to add a hint of finality to her tone in the most polite way possible. "It didn't work out. Shady Oaks _is_ working out. Things aren't so bad."

"Marge is gone!"

"There could be others."

"Tirith, look at this place! I've been to other facilities and the security here is lax; substandard, even. Nobody monitors you and if you left, it would just be one less mouth to feed. They already have your pensions and they'd probably just conveniently forget to report your disappearance for a few years. Nobody would come after you!"

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because this isn't the warrior of the night that I know!"

"I'm not a warrior anymore, Khadijah." Tirith folded her arms around herself even tighter, not out of rudeness so much as insulation from the painful words. "I'm not."

The two of them sat still for a few moments, letting themselves cool off before trying to speak again. Nobody else had taken notice, and a few of the other people in the common area had even wandered away when a call was made for surprise sugar free biscuits being given away in the dining hall. Too guilty to simply cut off a dear friend who had taken the time to come see her, Tirith loosened her body language in an attempt to demonstrate that she wasn't shutting Khadijah out.

"Tirith...I know how you ended up here. I read your file." At that, Tirith's ears pricked up again, and Khadijah leaned in closer so that they wouldn't be heard. "Do you want to know how you ended up here? And why you still have people out there who care? And why you wouldn't be a strain on anybody?"

The questions were rather presumptuous. Had Tirith wanted, she could have argued against all the claims, but hard logic gave way to sympathy for her friend's concern and a curiosity that she couldn't deny. Fear bubbled up inside at what the truth might be, and how it might damage the little world Tirith had constructed for herself, but she had to know. To think of dying and leaving that world without knowing what had really happened to her, and how she'd ended up in that wagon a few years ago, was too much to bear.

Relenting, she couldn't quite bring herself to look Khadijah in the eye again lest she become emotional herself, but she did scoot her chair a little closer. "Of course I want to know," she whispered.

Scooting closer as well, Khadijah took a deep breath to regain her composure. "Jaquilina sent me a letter just after it happened. One night, they were cleaning up camp at a time when Nesingwary's place was less busy than usual. Commotion broke out at one of their administrative cabins, and she and old Stonepot found a knock at the door. They almost freaked out when they found a big jungle troll there. And not one of the Horde ones; it was a Skullsplitter. He was hurt but mostly healed, and he carried you in his arms."

Tirith's heart began pounding so fast without any gradual escalation that she feared she'd experience another palpitation. "Oacaxo..." she murmured. Pain and longing that had long remained buried welled up, and she felt her throat constrict a little bit upon hearing the news.

"He said you were attacked, and Stonepot had to remove lead from his skull. The man was hysterical, and they almost ran out of the cabin because of his behavior. He claimed that you'd been shot and that he couldn't heal you with herbs; he ran for twelve hours without stopping until he reached the camp, and by then you were either gone or almost gone." Steeling her nerve as only a professional healer could do, Khadijah cleared her throat and appeared to be a bit choked up as well. "Make no mistake, Tirith: you _died_. It might not have been right away, but you died. Nesingwary himself kept the issue secret from all the travelers at the camp, but he organized every one of his employees until they found some random paladin. They hid Wachaho in a storage closet lest he be accused of having killed you, and the paladin was able to resurrect you but not provide deeper, long term healing; your body refused to wake up due to system shock and because the paladin was a member of the military, like most, he shot an emergency flare."

"I remember the conversation about resurrection...I could hear them."

"I received the news late, but when I arrived, Jaquilina said that your body moved a few times and that you'd react to certain voices. I've seen comatose patients who could hear speech around them before. When I arrived, you were already gone, and Jaquilina was distraught; the paladin had you air lifted via gryphon to an Alliance camp in the mountains between Stranglethorn Vale and the Swamp of Sorrows for more proper healing, and that's where you were recognized from the missing person report. I later found out from Jaquilina that Stonepot didn't want to surrender you into custody, but that she insisted it be done because Nesingwary didn't have the facilities to care for you. There was nothing they could do."

"Just...just a minute, please."

For a good long while, Tirith and Khadijah sat in silence as the night elf tried to wrap her head around everything she'd just heard. In a way, it was like receiving closure for a major part of her life. Despite her old age, much of Tirith's experience was distant: the Long Vigil had been monotonous and almost blurry in her memory, and her time before at Suramar was so far removed from her current reality that those first three thousand years felt like a mere three decades in her mind. Her relationships since leaving Serenity, however, were all like fresh wounds that hadn't yet healed properly. Perhaps, now, they would.

After a rather long time sitting quietly during which everyone else left the common area, Khadijah tried another plea. "Wachaho hid when the Alliance authorities flew you out on that emergency gryphon flight with the paladin and an apprentice priest. When Jaquilina and Stonepot told him that you'd been taken away for healing, he cried. He cried so hard that they worried the rest of the camp would hear, and they had trouble consoling him. I met him, once, during a trip to the camp; he lives nearby because he has nobody else, and even Jaquilina finds him a bit distant. He paints himself like a skeleton and all the other trolls won't even shake hands with him; he's under some sort of a taboo."

"They think he's a bad omen because all the people of his village were killed except for him. They believe touching or dealing with him will spread the curse; he's a pariah."

"Well...that makes sense. He still haunts the area around the camp, showing up to trade and then disappearing into the jungle again. But every time Jaquilina sees him, he asks about you. It's the only real interaction he has; other than that, he's a ghost in the world."

Regardless of Khadijah's demeanor, Tirith found the willpower to smile to herself upon hearing the news. "But he survived; I thought that Marge's henchmen killed him when they shot him in the head. I'm sure his life isn't easy, but all things considered...I'm happy for him." Shutting her eyes, she felt the emotion move over her like a wave, memories of the only time in her entire long life when she'd truly been happy stinging her once more. She still hadn't ever heard him laugh out loud.

Even when her eyes were closed, she could hear Khadijah shift as if the woman felt she'd made an inroad. "Don't you want to see him, then? Because I'm sure he wants to see you."

For the first time, Khadijah actually caught Tirith off guard. "I...what? Go...and see Oacaxo? And let him see me?" She was almost dumbstruck by the suggestion, only for her heart to sink all the way down into the pit of her stomach as her conservative, beaten self consciousness prevented her from even entertaining the thought. "No...no. I was happy in the time that I knew him. I really was. But the woman he knew is gone...I was so strong back then, and so healthy. We complemented each other, and lived as equals; neither of us were a burden on the other, nor did we put expectations on each other. And when I think of myself now, I just can't see the similarities. I've changed so much, even in such a short period of time. And to think of him as seeing me in this state...I feel like it would let both of us down." She breathed deep, feeling a shudder in her lungs as she did, mourning over the version of her self that she felt she'd lost after the torture she'd endured at the high security facility. "I prefer that he remember me the way I once was...it's better this way."

Speaking so soon that she almost cut Tirith off, Khadijah lost a bit of her professional luster as she shook her head furiously. "Tirith, I told you, I checked your file. You run every single day when they let you outside and your diet is healthier now than it was back at Camp Freedom. You haven't changed; I'm telling you this as someone who's known you for five years: you're still the warrior of the night that I first met. And even if it took us so long to locate you, we did this time just like we did last time; you have people, Tirith, and even if you don't see them all that often, they all remember you."

Sincerely touched, Tirith found it a bit easier to open up whereas she might have simply shut the conversation down by that point otherwise. "I am honored...I truly am. But I can't risk losing everything again. I truly have not a penny to my name; if I remain here at Shady Oaks, then I'll be alone but I know for sure I'll be taken care of. But if I leave..." Tirith had to stop talking until her heart rate slowed to a more reasonable speed, fighting against the twisting and turning inside of her as logic battled emotion, and fear battled hope. "...if I leave, then I risk winding up both alone and destitute. And my track record of success in taking risks isn't very reassuring." She practically held her breath afterward, trying to hard to suppress the thoughts and desires that threatened to manifest themselves anew.

Tirith almost jumped when she heard the light sniffle, and had to peer around just to make sure that they were alone. The sound was coming from Khadijah, the usually cheery but distant and professional priestess who for the first time had shown a bit of emotion of her own. She wasn't weeping, but a tear or two did have to be wiped away by a napkin on a nearby shelf as she appeared exasperated by the night elf's constant rejection of help.

Reaching to the side, Tirith patted her on the shoulder in a conciliatory gesture, sincerely sorry for her friend's disappointment but determined not to cause any more. The two of them sat for a few more minutes, not knowing what to say as their discussion appeared to have led to nowhere. Training her vision straight ahead toward the window, Tirith tried to give her upset friend some space but was surprised when Khadijah actually stood up as if to leave. Had she really been that upset?

"No matter what, I will always care about you Tirith, and so will the others. But if there is one request I could make of you...just one thing I could ask...it's this: please, don't let it end like this. Not in this place. Not in this way." From the corner of Tirith's eye, she could see Khadijah fiddling with something in her purse, and assumed that her friend had been so offended that she intended to leave. Tirith's heart sank even lower as she thought that after going so far out of her way to visit, Khadijah had been so hurt by the rejection of her advice that she was leaving. Those doubts, however, were stayed when Khadijah removed a small brass object and laid it on Tirith's knee. "In our order, we consider morality to be as important as the skills of our trade...and to break any of our codes is not taken lightly. However, there are some extraneous circumstances where bending those rules is considered acceptable. And, well...the security guard in this ward doesn't keep track of her keys very well."

Leaning down, Khadijah gave Tirith a warm hug that didn't give the impression of her being upset. While such an act would normally be taken as an invasion of personal space, Tirith gladly accepted the gesture and even hugged back. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Don't be. Just consider what I said. You can still be free, Tirith...you only have to make the choice."

Saying a bizarrely short goodbye, Khadijah hurried out of the common area, leaving Tirith alone again. The entire meeting felt odd in retrospect; Khadijah has searched for years, probably gone far out of her way and yet only discussed a single topic for a few minutes before leaving. It didn't make any sense when viewed as a simple meeting. But as the night elf sat alone in the common area, left to her own devices, she had to dro the denial act and admit that it hadn't been a simple meeting from the start.

Looking down in her knee, Tirith saw a small brass key. It was tiny and short, and the end was shaped like a bell. Conspicuously similar to the keys held by the head orderly and the janitorial staff, the object felt warm in her hands.

Slowly, her gaze drifted upward, back toward the reflection of the empty room in the window. The light of day was rapidly dimming, giving her nocturnal eyes a better view of the swampland and humid forest outside. The glass was thick and the frame sturdy, all held closed by a rather ornate lock. The keyhole was small, the aged brass gleaming around a hole shaped like a bell.

Tirith breathed deep as numerous thoughts swelled in her mind. She had no money. She had no food or water. She had no armor, no weapon, no map; only her sense of direction and the stars to guide her. At the facility, she was warm, safe, content and respected...and trapped. Her eyes darted back and forth in between the keyhole and the reflection of the empty room behind her, mind struggling to reach a decision.

Her heart slowed, returning to a normal speed as she gazed at the marshland woods beyond the high hills just outside the window. The long, limp branches of those cypress trees swayed in the light breeze, inviting her to run through them like she once did.


	30. August 27, year 30

_August 27, year 30_

Jaquilina pressed forward through the jungle, swinging the machete that she'd fashioned for herself back and forth. The underbrush was thick, the air humid and the noon time sun warm. It always was in Stranglethorn Vale, and that was the life she'd chosen, but damned if she didn't hate wading so deep into the rainforest. Only in cases as important to her as this one did she make exceptions.

The search party she'd finally managed to organize had all been happy to accompany her - one didn't work in a busy merchant town frequented by all factions without making quite a few friends. Regardless, she knew that it had to be taxing on them, and she didn't want to run them ragged. Stonepot was a tough old man but wasn't used to the heat, and Soraya and Pontus were raised in a forest but weren't used to the humidity. Brownear, her tauren assistant, had been raised in a savannah and thus was used to neither the forest, nor the humidity, nor the heat, and was doing surprisingly well in the jungle considering the fact that he had hooves instead of feet.

The others had stopped to rest, and while Jaquilina was happy to oblige, her obsession drove her to continue cutting away branches to clear the way once the others were ready to continue. Ever the devoted restoration Druid, Pontus frowned every time Jaquilina cut away pieces of living plant life, but she'd at least convinced him to tolerate the technique knowing that he could easily cast a regrowth spell on all the plants on their way back to the camp. That is, whenever they finally did make their way back.

While the others ate and chatted lightly behind, Jaquilina sat on a low lying branch, facing away from them as she tried to read the aerial map one more time. Even after all those years spent in the region, the jungle was still a difficult place to navigate. So engrossed was she in planning her route that she was rather startled when Stonepot laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Mind if I join ye, lass?"

Not even bothering to look up from her work, Jaquilina just nodded and began marking on her map with a piece of charcoal. "Please, I could use another pair of eyes on this actually."

Sitting down next to her, the old man watched her at work for a few moments, his body language uneasy but unnoticed by her. Eventually, he spoke up. "Jackie…we've been searching a relatively small area for en entire day. The others haven't said anything, but they're tired; I cen tell. Maybe it's time te call this one off."

Disrupted in her thoughts, Jaquilina held the map in her hands and looked up at him as if she were a scolded child. He was far nicer than her parents and would never push too hard, but his suggestion stung. "Just a little while longer…I know it's been hard, but I feel like we're so close. Maybe not close to finding any clues, but at least close to scouting the entire area, mapping everything out and…and saying that we tried," she replied guiltily.

A long, sympathetic stare marked his weathered features as he looked at her the way a father (or grandfather, in his case) might look at a foolish but sincere child. The man had been almost like an authority figure in the camp given Nesingwary's busy schedule, and she could tell that he already understood the source of her guilt. "Look…it's noon time now. Maybe we cen search a little while longer, but not till dark. If we cen scout more of this area, then fine, but it's always possible te come back enother day."

Sighing deeply, Jaquilina finally folded up the map and held it on her lap for a moment. "I know…I know. It's just taken me so long to organize a trip like this. I'm just afraid that it will be difficult to convince people to come again next time. It's been so long…and there's so much ground to cover if we want to find any sign of her." She closed her eyes, the feeling of regret at having stood back and watched as Alliance authorities took custody of her injured friend a long time ago.

Frowning in a way that really did remind her of her grandfather, Stonepot clasped his hands in front of himself and looked down as well. "I know, Jackie; I remember the day, too. But it's been well over two years sence she went missing from that facility, and after that, the big Skullsplitter fella stopped coming around as well. It's going te take a lot of time te search all the areas where sightings were reported." They waited until the conversation died down behind them, and Stonepot stood up. "Jest let us know when yer ready te move again. I'm sure that the ethers don't mind continuing until the evening."

"Thanks, gramps," she called the old man affectionately as he moved back toward the makeshift camp the others had set up.

Before long, the party of five had begun to move once more, walking single file like a train as Jaquilina cut a path through the underbrush. The part of the rainforest they were in was particularly dense, and it was difficult to see anything higher up than Brownear's head; the giant ferns provided what was almost a low ceiling, or a second canopy just above the forest floor. Vines and even high roots surrounded them on both sides, and more than once they found themselves at a dead end formed by packed earth and low thickets of branches that blocked their way.

Just when the sun had begun to descend and Stonepot announced that dusk was only an hour away, success sprang up.

"Wait…those are tracks," Soraya said while pointing at a patch of exposed dirt between two large leaves. The patch was barely even visible from their standpoint, and only a sentinel's keen eyes would have noticed.

"Are you sure?" Jaquilina asked, though she was already hacking her way toward the area.

"One hundred percent; that's a mammalian foot. It's light and only from the heel, but it's there. Whoever it is doesn't want to be tracked."

Eventually the group cut their way toward the dirt patch, and Soraya searched some more. Pontus' eyes glowed an even brighter shade of amber as he scanned the area for life, and he paused in a westward direction. "We're being watched," he whispered so quietly that neither the dwarf nor the tauren could even hear him. It was for the better, as the two of them continued searching the immediate area and appeared completely natural to any spies.

Jaquilina gripped her machete a bit more tightly. Although they were searching for a dear friend, they all knew that they were in a literal jungle; there was no shortage of people and animals lurking that would gladly end their lives if given the chance. The two night elves remained more relaxed, moving into defensive stances in the most subtle of ways so as not to give away the fact that they knew someone was spying on them.

Tension mounted, and eventually Stonepot and Brownear realized that something was wrong. Perhaps an entire minute passed as the group held still, all of them looking back and forth at each other to see who would give some sort of an order or course of action. It was a futile waiting game, and Jaquilina recognized that whoever was watching them could easily have attacked them already. Finally, she took a calculated risk. It was a slim chance, but she had a feeling…just a feeling.

"Hello?" she asked the dark greenery surrounding them. Even Pontus tensed up when she spoke so loudly, and the others huddled together a little bit closer. "It's me…Jaquilina Dramet."

"What you do?" Brownear whispered to her in his broken Low Common.

Ignoring the perplexed stares of her comrades, Jaquilina pushed a little more, her heart thumping as she felt a strong premonition. "Tirith…are you there?" she asked again.

For a few seconds nothing happened, and she started to feel like an idiot talking to a leaf. What she hadn't realized, however, was that her view was trained too low; and when the leaves rustled, she noticed that the black color above her head wasn't just mud smeared on the trunk of a tree.

"Whoa!" Stonepot cried as he and Pontus moved behind Brownear. Soraya hissed at first, crouching low as she backed up.

Jaquilina, however, stood unafraid after she recovered from the initial wave of panic when the empty space in front of her turned out to be a person. Covered in black and white skeletal paint, the long eared woman stood taller than Soraya and just about as tall as Pontus, hovering over the group as two bright, wild eyes studied them. As unafraid as Jaquilina, the savage looking woman wrapped in sparse furs stepped forward, holding a crude spear at ease beside her and not looking the least bit hostile despite her imposing stature. In addition to the skeletal paint, she was also covered in white clay handprints from a three fingered hand much larger than her own.

"Jackie! Don't move!" Stonepot whispered, as if the long eared woman wouldn't be able to hear what he was saying.

Shocking her friends even more, Jaquilina actually dropped her machete on the ground, leaving herself entirely unarmed. Her mouth opened to form a few words, but no sound came out, and she felt as if she were seeing a ghost. She took a few steps closer toward the strange person, and Soraya tightened her grip on her short sword before letting go and growing wide eyed.

"Tirith…is that…" The other night elf female stepped forward as well, proverbially disarming the rest of their comrades as they noticed that the woman they thought was just a short troll had glowing silver eyes.

Though her expression was different to read under the face paint, Tirith's body language softened as she dropped her own weapon as well and drew Jaquilina into a tight hug, displaying a forwardness and warmth that didn't quite seem like the more reserved woman they'd known years ago. Stonepot hustled out from behind Brownear, only to stop again when another body the same dimensions as the tauren's shifted behind Tirith, and the others tensed up again.

Heavy footsteps plodded as an even larger person stepped right next to Tirith, wearing the same skeletal pattern of body paint save the five fingered clay handprints from a much smaller hand than his own. The sharp tusks and lack of any glow in his eyes signaled who he was.

"Oh…Soraya, wait! This Wachaho!" said Brownear, pointing to the familiar painted face that had once haunted Nesingwary's camp until about two years ago.

The two unpainted night elves looked confused at first until they remembered the story that Jaquilina had told them earlier. "You're…the Skullsplitter?" Pontus asked curiously. "Do you understand what we're saying?" The druid held his palms open to show that they meant no harm, and despite the heavy brow over Oacaxo's almost beady eyes, the painted man didn't seem aggressive.

An even bigger shock came when the two unpainted night elves gasped at what appeared to be a reply uttered by the jungle troll in Darnassian. Jaquilina could tell from the sound that he probably only knew a few phrases, but Soraya and Pontus seemed floored all the same. Not that the human really took notice; after so many weeks spent trying to organize such a trip, she'd found the person she was looking for on the first attempt.

Hugging the much taller woman tightly, Jaquilina closed her eyes tight but smiled all the same. "I'm sorry, I didn't know what else to do!" she laughed in a mixture of sadness and relief.

Fortunately for her, Tirith (as well as Stonepot and Oacaxo) knew exactly what she was talking about. "There was nothing you could do…there is nothing to forgive," the painted night elf replied slowly in Low Common, as if she had grown unused to speaking fluent, normal Common. Gripping the human's shoulders, Tirith held her apart and looked her over. "How did you know where to look?"

"By scouring every part of the jungle and paying people to search every inch," Jaquilina chortled, almost forgetting that they were still in the middle of the jungle. "Khadijah wrote to me when you first disappeared, but the facility didn't report your absence until over a year later. Nobody was sent…but I didn't forget. I'd never forget."

More timid than Jaquilina, Soraya crept forward, unsure of how the larger night elf would react; Tirith had been hunted down by Marge, technically, because of a missing person report Soraya had filed, and she looked uneasy as she moved within striking distance of her elder elf. Yet again displaying a remarkable shift, Tirith reached forward and grabbed Soraya, who flinched before she ended up on the receiving end of a hug as well. It wasn't as warm as the one Jaquilina had received, but it melted away whatever tension had remained in the air.

"I'm glad that you didn't forget about us. We would have contacted somebody in the outside world sooner, but after our…last experience, we thought it better to lay low for a while." As she spoke, Tirith motioned toward the canopy, and Brownear laughed and slapped his forehead at the sight.

High up in the trees, far higher than someone Oacaxo's weight should have been able to climb, the two painted persons had constructed a rather sturdy and stable looking treehouse. It wasn't too large but it was completely closed off, covered in moss, fungus, ferns and even packed soil brought up from the ground, and – most importantly – was impossible to notice when one was passing beneath it. The party must have retraced their steps around the same area at least three times, and had failed to notice the room sized building just twenty feet above the ground.

Words of admiration were exchanged, the whole party marveling at the fact that the pair hadn't been that far away for the past two years as they hid themselves away from the world. Questions remained – chief among them Stonepot's insistence: "How?"

For a second, Tirith exchanged a look with Oacaxo, both of their expressions beneath the paint unreadable to all but themselves.

"I escaped through a window at the facility and ran. Nobody came after me, and I ran alongside the main roads, almost in clear view of travelers. I ate berries, tubers and bird eggs that I found, along with a few monkeys I caught on the way here; I didn't have to search around Nesingwary's for long…" She reached out and tapped on Oacaxo as if he were an object or hunter pet, though Jaquilina didn't really notice. "Nobody saw us. So to protect ourselves, we found the most isolated part of the jungle here that was still close to the camp…in preparation for a day when it would be safe for us to reach out again. We built this house in less than a month. We have only a single room to sleep in, but this," she explained while sweeping her arms around her to indicate the rainforest itself, "is our home."

The story was fairly simple, and the details of their choice in location gave Jaquilina hope that their efforts had finally paid off. "That day has come, Tirith! Nobody is looking for you; Khadijah claims that they have nothing else to demand from you. The two of you are under no risk if you come through the camp."

"Ye could even spend the night if ye wanted te; nobody is going te cause any problems for ye now," Stonepot added.

"Please, at least come for a few nights," Soraya said, chiming in on the chorus of requests for the long lost painted people to visit the world of the living again. "Your house will be safe here, and we have so much to catch up on."

Though Tirith's smile wasn't particularly wide, there was a happiness there that none of them had seen in her before. She'd been content, but never quite like this. Every so slightly, her ears bobbed and the rhythm of her breathing changed. As if speaking in some sort of code, so did Oacaxo's, and a sort of agreement seemed to have been made.

"We are honored; we truly are. This is our home now. But…it has been so long since we've seen anybody else. Perhaps…" Her lips curled up curiously, and she almost appeared embarrassed by the sudden kindness from people she hadn't seen in years. "Perhaps it's time for us to visit the world again."

Little else needed to be said. Owning few material possessions, Tirith and Oacaxo followed the posse Jaquilina had organized with almost no preparation time necessary. The first of many trips to the camp for both visitation and trade began. And in a rainforest so far removed from her former life and many long years of depression, a certain Kaldorei finally walked among trusted friends with her head held high.

 **A/N: this brings us to the end of Life After Purpose. Unlike my other stories, I didn't write any of my own experiences into this story, and yet I feel as emotionally attached to it all the same. It was stressful and difficult to write sometimes, but I'm happy with the results. And after such a long story, I figure a few brief notes are in order.**

 **I don't think Tirith will appear in another story of her own. I've put the poor woman through enough, and I imagine that now, she lives out the remainder of her life comfortably and truly free. She might show up as a cameo or small supporting character in other stories of mine, but as far as I'm concerned, she's found the life she wants and is done having adventures forever.**

 **Dr. Finklesnap is never punished here; I felt things were more realistic this way. People like that usually aren't prosecuted – rather, they're applauded and celebrated. Marge was a bit too aggressive for her own good and got hers, but Finklesnap is a weasel and a climber. His crimes against ethical science do eventually catch up with him in a future story called What Has Been Seen, but that's another tale for another time.**

 **Khadijah, Soraya and Pontus will all appear again, as will a few other OCs with smaller roles here. Jaquilina and Stonepot are canon characters and thus belong to Blizzard, not me.**

 **Oacaxo won't appear again, but for those wondering, Tirith spends the rest of her days with him in Stranglethorn in a less-than-lovers-more-than-friends situation preferred by them both. I'm just mentioning this in a note because, as I said, Tirith has earned her rest so I won't ever actually write a separate story for how that plays out. They do conceive an unplanned but well cared-for child together despite her age, but the stories involving their son take place in the future of Azeroth and thus are slightly AU; the long life of Centrius is, again, another tale for another time.**

 **From the bottom of my heart, I thank all of you who read this to the end and I'm sorry if any of the more raw parts of the story were difficult to read. With all the real tragedies and political/human crises in the world today, I felt that certain elements of the story needed to be told. I truly do hope that whether positive or negative, the story moved you in some way or another. Stay safe, and take care of the ones you love; the world can be an ugly place, and one must work in order to achieve a happy ending like Tirith did.**


End file.
